by John C. Ford
“Look, here’s the deal,” Tim said. “Abigail Shales has gone missing.”
Gone missing! I was committing perjury or whatever to save our investigation, and now Tina and I would never find out what Abby knew.
“A neighbor saw you at her house last night.”
“Hmmm.” At that point, it was a struggle just to stay in control of myself. The sheriff caressed his stubble as he watched on from the driveway. The interview had turned into a full-on, out-of-body experience. “Sorry,” I said, “but whoever it is, they’re wrong.”
Tim pinched his eyes. He didn’t bother hiding his frustration anymore. “Christopher. C’mon. This is really serious.”
We’d never had hard words before. I’d worshiped him for years, and part of me couldn’t let it go—his disappointment hit me with a slap of shame.
“Are you saying she went missing last night?” I stalled. Tim nodded, but it didn’t make sense. Everybody knows they don’t look into these things until twenty-four hours have passed. “That was only a few hours ago. How do you know she’s even really gone?”
Tim sighed. “There was an altercation at her house last night. Some people on her street heard it. But I’m sure that’s not news to you because they saw two kids leaving in a Porsche around that time, and I know that could only be you and Mike. Her husband came to the hospital last night. He needs her, and she’s gone.”
I was trying to swallow the news—trying to force it down and figure out some way it didn’t spell huge trouble for me, and Mike, and Mitch—when the sheriff pushed off the car and headed toward the porch. Tim saw him coming.
“So this is it, Christopher. We’ll just forget what you said before. Now tell me what happened at that house last night.”
He’s giving you a last chance—take it.
“I wish I could,” I said. “But I don’t even know who that lady is.” Below us, the sheriff grasped the railing to the front steps.
“How we doin’?” he said in his cavernous voice.
“All done,” Tim said, and glared at me as he retreated down the steps.
My mom was lying in wait for my return.
She’d stationed herself on the farthest edge of the living room sofa, while her foot tapped against the hardwood floor with the ferocity of a speed-metal drummer’s. My dad gave her calming pats on the back while he spoke with an airline operator, confirming that they’d have vegetarian meals for their flight. I needed to get in touch with Mike fast—Tim and the sheriff were probably on the way to his house right then.
“Well . . . ?” my dad said as he hung up.
“It was nothing,” I said quickly.
My mom was dubious at best. “Nothing?”
“Yeah, I guess somebody saw that guy picking the fight with us. They just wanted to be sure we were okay.”
She inched back on the sofa, letting an ounce of tension ease from her hair-trigger nerves. My dad hummed, noncommittal. They looked almost as frustrated as Tim had, and it tempted me to ease their nerves further with another heap of lies about how totally fine and sunny my life was going.
“Christopher,” my dad said, “you’re getting into a lot of . . . situations here. That’s what concerns your mother and me. We’re leaving tomorrow, you know.”
“I know. It was nothing, seriously. I’m gonna go read, okay?”
They were mumbling to each other as I raced up the stairs.
“You gotta do something for me.”
“What?”
“Lie to the cops.”
“That’s my specialty,” Mike said. “What about?”
I made sure my bedroom door was locked and spoke softly into my cell, even though I knew my parents were still downstairs, trying to decide how much of a delinquent their son had become and whether shipping me off to the Marines was the only option left. “Last night,” I told Mike. “You gotta tell them we weren’t at Abby’s house.”
A long silence darkened the connection. “Are you serious?” Mike said finally.
“Tim Spencer and the sheriff just grilled me about it. Somebody saw a car like yours at their house, but I told them I didn’t even know who Abby Shales was. Can you back me up?”
“Why would you lie about that?” Now Mike was getting hysterical, too—the one person I could count on to stay calm no matter what. I wanted to stuff him and my parents in a car and send them to a day spa. They could take mud baths and stop worrying about me while Tina and I wrapped up the case and restored order to Petoskey. They’d get back just in time for the parade, where the mayor would give us the key to the city and proclaim our greatness.
“I had to,” I said. “I told you, Tim and the sheriff are behind this somehow. They didn’t come here to do their police duties—they’re trying to make sure the murder stays covered up. If they know we’re on to them, who knows what they’ll do.”
“But what if they didn’t do it? No offense or anything, but it’s just slightly possible that you’re wrong. I mean, I do love screwing with the police and all, but this is kind of hard-core.”
It took me a few seconds of deep disappointment to realize he was right. Mike had been unsupportive of my project from the start, but this was asking a lot. Tina was going to hate me for this, and maybe I’d get in a ton of trouble, but I didn’t have it in me to press him anymore.
“Yeah, okay, do what you need to. But could you do me a favor? If they come to your house, could you just pretend you aren’t there or something? I could use a few more days.”
Right on cue, an electronic doorbell sounded across Mike’s line.
“It’s them,” he said. “I’m looking out my window, and they can see me.”
It was over. Maybe I’d be arrested, I didn’t know. I could hear Mike’s steps to the door as I sat there on the bed, eyes pinched shut, doom bearing down on me. My jaw ached from my grinding teeth.
“You still there, man?” Mike said. He’d stopped walking. He must have been standing right at the door, ready to let them inside.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
Mike took a deep breath. “Don’t sweat it, okay? I got your back.”
The exhaustion took over—I lay back on my bed, clothes on, and fell into a deep sleep that did wonders for my overcooked nerves. Daniel woke me up for no good reason in the middle of the afternoon, but I was too relieved at getting through the morning in one piece to really care.
I picked up my room a little and took my spy novel downstairs. Keeping myself on lockdown for the day, I figured, would put my parents’ fears to rest. I planted myself on the back porch for most of the afternoon, a fixture of conspicuous responsibility, until shadows crept over the garden and the backyard fell silent for the evening. The air had cooled a touch, and I was actually thinking of helping Daniel set the table (not that he would have let me), when I heard a familiar-sounding pair of boots clomping across our front porch.
Knuckles rapped loudly on the screen door, and I could hear my mom mutter from upstairs, “Oh good Lord, what now?”
At the door, Tina had a cigarette going. Smoke billowed into the house as she peered through the screen in a T-shirt that said PRIVATE PROPERTY. My dad got there just ahead of me, and from the Botoxed expression on his face, I could tell that he didn’t know quite what to think about the apparition before him.
“Hi there. Mr. N?” Most people called him Professor.
“Errr . . . that’s one way to say it, yes.”
“Tina McIntyre,” she said. “Heard a lot about you.”
The words went straight through my dad’s ears. “Can I help you?”
“Dad, this is Tina. From the paper. Could you let her inside?”
“Errr, of course. Of course, of course, of course. Come in.”
Tina flicked her smoke onto the porch and winked at me as she entered.
“Really good to meet you. I love this kid of yours.” Tina gave my dad a close look as she shook his hand. “Now I see where Chris gets his good looks.”
My dad sn
orted a variety of laugh that I’d never heard before, and if I wasn’t mistaken, his cheeks colored a little.
“You aren’t hiding any more Newell men around town are you?”
I really couldn’t have imagined things going any better, until I heard my mom’s rapturous voice call down, “Is that Julia I hear?”
“Errr,” my dad said nervously.
My mom’s feet pounded over the stairs.
“Errr,” he said again.
I cringed.
“Now Ju—” My mom’s lips froze as she rounded the corner. “Oh.”
“Dear, this is Tina McIntyre, Christopher’s friend.”
My mom petrified halfway to the door. Her arms hung limp while Tina hugged her. “Great to meet you,” Tina said.
My mom regarded Tina warily as they broke apart. Tina looked around at the historic map of Petoskey and the antique spinning-wheel. “Very nice. Chris says you’re both professors. I can almost feel the brain power.” She made accordion movements around my dad’s head. “It’s like, bzzzzzz.”
My dad swung a chair behind her. “Sit down. Tell us about the work you’re doing over there at the Courier. Christopher seems to be enjoying it.”
And then Daniel appeared. “What stinks?”
“It’s nothing,” my dad said. “Come meet Tina McIntyre. She works at the Courier.”
“Hello, stud man,” Tina said, and I could feel my mom bristle.
“Your crossword puzzles suck.”
My mom whispered a protest: “Daniel.” He never talked like that with my parents around, but I knew that somehow Tina would get blamed for his bad manners.
My dad shrugged an apology. “They’re too easy for him, you see.”
“Another cutie, and he’s a brain?” Tina said.
Daniel beamed, and my dad’s tongue was practically hanging out of his mouth at that point. My mom held stiff at the side of the room, deep in concerned-parent mode, but I figured two out of three was the best I could ever hope for and pulled Tina out on the porch to talk in private.
“My mom can be a little uptight,” I said when we got there.
Tina shrugged. “She thinks I’m going to corrupt you. Moms are supposed to be protective. I’m serious, though, your dad’s a hottie.”
I ignored that and told her about the visit from Tim and the sheriff, and how I had denied even knowing Abby Shales. “I might be screwed, ’cause somebody saw Mike’s car out there. They might have even gotten a look at us, I don’t know.”
“No,” Tina said emphatically. “You’re a rock star. You did the right thing. We’re closing in on this—we just need to find out what Abby knows.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the other bad news.”
“What?”
“She’s gone. They said she disappeared last night, after she took Wade to the hospital.”
Tina slapped a fist against her palm and swore too loudly. It must have carried into the house. On the sidewalk, a retired woman from down the street was taking her poodle for an evening walk—she looked up sharply and ambled away from us.
“Your friend Tim sounds like a dick,” Tina said, burning off some disgust at the news about Abby.
I shrugged. “He didn’t used to be. I still can’t believe he did it, in a way.”
“He’s a dick, dude.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I plopped down next to her on the steps. The bad news bonded us as we sat there, moisture creeping into the air and the sky turning purple above us. Tina was the only one who cared about this case like I did. She was the one only who would’ve understood why I’d wanted to go to the morgue that morning.
“Crappy day, but you’re a stud for hanging in there. We’ll get them, Chris.”
She pulled me up off the steps, and then something magnificent happened. I don’t know if she thought about it beforehand. I didn’t. All of a sudden my arms were going around her waist and hers were wrapping over my shoulders, and we were pulling toward each other. It wasn’t sexual or anything. It was just a hug. But a wave of content crashed over me, and my worries about lying to the police leaked away into the night, as quickly as the far-off yipping of the poodle.
“We’re gonna get them,” Tina repeated in my ear.
Her lips were close, and my ear tingled with pleasure even as we drew apart.
18
“All set,” my mom muttered to herself. “All set. All set.”
My dad popped his head into the kitchen, his shoulders weighted down with suitcases. “We should have left ten minutes ago,” he said, and rushed out to the car.
“We’ll call you when we get settled, which should be pretty late tonight. Probably around—”
“Ten thirty or so. You’ve told me, Mom. We’ll be waiting.”
She hugged me tight. “Take care of him,” she whispered. “And take care of yourself, okay?”
“I’ll miss you, Mom.” I meant it.
She enlisted me to carry a few of her bags, and eventually the whole production made it out to the driveway. “It’s all yours now, partner,” my dad said as he closed the trunk.
“Have a good time, Dad.” I meant that, too.
“Keep the fights to a bare minimum, okay?”
“You got it. Three max.”
He gave me his wry grin. “Let’s not have any house calls from Tim Spencer, either, huh?”
“Yeah, sorry about that. That was just a . . . weird thing.”
He wanted to touch me in some approving, fatherly way and settled on a sideways half hug. He said his good-byes to Daniel, took a drink of us with his eyes, and hopped into the car. My mom blew us kisses as they rolled down the street, hanging out the window like her sons were standing on a train platform and she was watching us as long as she could.
“Good-bye boys! Be safe! Good-bye! Good-bye. . . .”
Their departure was supposed to free me up to investigate Mitch’s death, but mostly it was just a huge distraction. It was like having a missing tooth. It was hard to focus on anything but the hollowness in the den, where my mom would have been working on her research grant, or the empty-looking kitchen chair, where my dad would have been reading one of his old stories.
Daniel didn’t seem to mind. He dove right into a pile of chemistry books he had checked out of the library—he was probably rein-venting the periodic table of elements or something. Since I didn’t have anything else going on, I figured I might as well check the list of household duties my parents had left for me.
Mow lawn. That could wait. Take Daniel to pool. Ugh. Collect mail. That I could handle.
The box had just three thin envelopes: the cable bill, a credit card offer, and a handwritten envelope addressed to me. It bore a post-mark from Petoskey and no return address. I tossed the others on the kitchen table and went up to my room to open it. I didn’t recognize the tiny, super-slanted handwriting, but somehow I already knew it was going to be about Mitch.
Fingertip-sized grease marks smudged the page inside, a half sheet of paper torn carelessly from a spiral notebook. Potato chip crumbs spilled to the floor when I unfolded it.
She hadn’t signed the note or written my name at the top, but she didn’t have to. I could practically see her looking my address up in the phone book that night, after she left Wade at the hospital. She probably dropped it in the mail slot at the bus station, her last act in Petoskey before throwing her chips away and hopping on a Grey-hound.
You wanted to know, so here it is. Mitch had pictures of the mayor with a woman at the motel. (Her name was Kate Something accoreding to Mitch—some fancy bitch lawyer or something.) Anyway, if you can’t figure out what he was doing with those pictures you’re not as smart as you seem.
Mitch used to tell me he was going to take his money and go to Texas. It was just a stupid dream like everything else he said. Well I’m going. It’s a big state and I plan on getting lost, so don’t try to find me. You actually seem like a desent kid, so I hope your serious about trying to find whoever killed my Mitch. He m
ight have been an idiot, but he was good for a laugh and that’s more than I can say for any other man.
Good luck kid. Do Mitch right—somebody should.
P.S. He had a partner. They used to meet at the pool, that’s all I really know. Mitch said he loved me, but he didn’t tell me much.
I sat at my desk, rereading Abby’s note with a strange exhilaration. If you’re going to get invested in a dead criminal, it’s nice to know that he was shooting for the stars. I couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Mitch trying to blackmail the mayor. The uptight little man had been having an affair with Kate Warne, and Mitch had found out somehow.
It seemed reasonably certain to me that, admirable as his efforts at blackmailing may have been, they got Mitch killed. Abby’s note had to be right. The blackmail scheme must have been what Mitch had been talking about at the country club bar the night he died, and the affair between the mayor and Kate Warne made a certain amount of sense.
Dana had told me how close her dad was to Kate Warne. It explained why the mayor had been giving her that weird look when she flirted with the bartender at the scholarship ceremony: he was jealous. It also fit perfectly with the sheriff’s interest in the case—after all, his sister was being blackmailed by Mitch. Maybe the sheriff had decided to put a stop to it.
There was something else, too. As soon as I read about Mitch having pictures, my mind flashed to the Vista View case in Dr. Mobley’s office. It had seemed like just another of Dr. Mobley’s oddities, but now that I thought about it, the first time I’d ever seen it was the day Mitch arrived at the morgue. It could have all been a wild coincidence, but I doubted it. Somewhere out there was a Vista View memory card with Mitch’s pictures on it.
I had no way of knowing where the card had gone—maybe Mobley had destroyed it, maybe the sheriff had taken it, or maybe it was gone before either of them got their hands on Mitch—but Abby had given me something else to look for that would be just as informative. We needed to find Mitch’s partner.
