“Yes. That’s why she died.”
“What makes you think that, Emily?”
Hayley’s mom looked over her shoulder into the kitchen, then out the front window. She leaned in. “Hayley told me.”
“Before she died?” Now they were getting somewhere.
“No, after.”
Aloa frowned. “And how did she do that, exactly?”
Emily stood and disappeared into the bedroom, returning with a small black device that looked like a cross between a TV remote and a voltage meter.
“It’s a spirit box,” Emily said, settling next to Aloa. “It picks up the voices of the dead, the voices humans can’t hear. You ask a question and, if the time is right, those who are gone will talk to you.” Emily looked at Aloa. “I read about it online and watched videos. I bought this on Amazon. $89.99. The top-ranked model.”
Aloa gave a mental eye roll. “Go on,” she said.
“It was the fifth time I used it that I heard her.” Emily pressed two buttons and lifted the device toward Aloa’s ear. “I saved it. Listen.”
There was a hiss of air and then Emily’s voice: “Who killed you, baby? Who did this to you?”
The question was followed by a buzz of what sounded like static, a clicking sound, and then something deeper, a rumble that seemed to pulse in a staccato pattern before it dissolved into another hiss of interference.
“Hear that?” Emily said.
“Sorry.” Aloa shook her head.
“Listen again. That was Hayley. You can hear her,” Emily said. She rewound the recording and held the small machine against Aloa’s ear. “She says, ‘hear me,’ and then, ‘she did it.’ It’s very clear if you know what to listen for.”
Aloa closed her eyes and listened again. With a lot of imagination—supplemented by the desperate hope of a grieving parent—she supposed part of the rumble could sound a little like the words, “she did it.”
Emily clicked off the device. “Hayley said it. It was that girl who killed her. I knew it all along.”
Aloa tried to keep the frustration out of her voice. “What girl are you talking about, Emily?”
“Jordan Connor.”
“Her friend at the campout?”
Emily sniffed. “Hardly a friend.”
“And how exactly did Jordan kill Hayley?”
Outside the kitchen window, Aloa could see two cedar waxwings bobbing on the branches of a dense berry bush. Their Kabuki eyes made them appear exotic and showy.
“By giving her drugs and alcohol,” Emily said. “That’s why she got lost.”
“You’re saying it was deliberate?”
“Of course it was.” Emily went on, as if explaining the obvious to a slow-witted child. “Jordan met Hayley at some big race a couple of years ago. A hundred-miler, I think. She was an ultramarathoner and did well for her first time. Got fourth place, I believe. Anyway, she attached herself to Hayley, tried to ride on my baby’s coattails. She was doing those races with her.”
“The Cloudrunner series?” Aloa asked.
“Yes,” Emily said, “and Monica Prager—she’s an adventure filmmaker—decided to make a documentary about the two of them. You know, their strength, their ups and downs, their determination. But, as things went on, she decided to shift the movie to Hayley’s story: how she was healing, how she used running to face grief. Jordan was getting aced out and she didn’t like it. Hayley didn’t see the jealousy, but I did. When Hayley died, I suspected right away that Jordan had some part in it.”
“So you’re saying Jordan got Hayley high and therefore she’s responsible for Hayley getting lost and dying?”
“It’s called manslaughter. I looked it up.” Emily straightened her shoulders. “You do something negligent that causes somebody else to die. By the way, did I tell you what Hayley said the last time I saw her?”
“You didn’t,” Aloa said.
“She told me she didn’t know who she could trust anymore.” Emily stared at Aloa’s notebook. “Aren’t you going to write that down?”
She waited, so Aloa did.
“What about the note in the truck?” Aloa asked. “What about everyone saying Hayley was depressed?”
“I know my girl. She wouldn’t kill herself.” Emily got up and went to the front window. “Sure, she was having shin problems, but they would have gotten better. They did before. And, sure, she lost one of her sponsors, but when the movie came out, she would have gotten more. She was doing good. She was working hard. She was determined.”
Aloa knew determination was not the lone cure for addiction, or for depression.
“Did you tell Mr. Collins what you’re telling me?” she asked.
Emily came back and sat across from Aloa. “I told him nobody cared enough to find out what really happened to Hayley and how much it hurt to think my baby killed herself.” A tear slipped from Emily’s eye and she brushed it away. “I told him there were guys with guns and that Jordan had threatened Hayley.”
“Did she? Specifically?”
“Giving drugs and booze to an addict is a threat,” Emily said, her face wrinkling into grief and more tears. She scrubbed them away.
Aloa waited. Then, “Did you tell Mr. Collins about the spirit box?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I wanted whoever was looking into her death to hear it for themselves.”
Aloa couldn’t help the small sigh that escaped her lips. “So you’re saying Jordan Connor is the reason Hayley is dead?”
“Talk to T.J. He’ll tell you. He was there at the campout. He lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I’ll give you directions. There’s no cell reception there so you just have to show up. He won’t mind.”
“And Jordan Connor?”
“She works part-time at this fancy bar in the city.” Emily gave Aloa the name and address.
“You’ll see I was right,” she said as Aloa rose to leave. “Hayley’s spirit told the truth.”
CHAPTER 12
Aloa stepped into the roadside deli, her sleep-deprived eyes rebelling at the fluorescent light glaring off the shop’s white walls and checkered linoleum floor. Bowls of potato and macaroni salad sat in glass-front cases next to hunks of honey ham and peppered turkey. The place smelled like pickles and cheese.
She waited while a family of four ordered sandwiches with such specific directions it was as if each were guiding a nuclear missile to its target and told herself to order something substantial. Maybe a veggie sandwich on whole wheat. But when the pimply faced clerk turned to her, she said, “Just a kale salad. And a water, please.”
She carried her meal to a wooden outdoor table where she pulled on her sunglasses and set the plate of chopped greens in front of her. Actually, she hated kale salad. But compare 250 calories to the 575 for the sandwich and she’d ordered the salad, almost against her will.
That was the thing with eating disorders. Your mind worked like a calculator, assigning guilt-inducing numbers to every potato chip, celery stick, and hamburger that crossed your line of sight. Which, as a recovering anorexic, made you feel bad for eating and worse for not eating. She retrieved two ibuprofen from her pack, swallowed them with half the bottle of water, and choked down the salad, which made her feel like a horse chomping at the last nibbles of a dry and dying pasture.
The interview with Emily had made her tired. She wanted to lie down on the table and go to sleep. Instead, she closed her eyes and listened to the rush of cars on the two-lane road, the burbling song of a warbling vireo, the faint buzz of a small plane. Finally she got up, cleared her plate and fork to a plastic tub, and got into Doc’s van.
One step at a time, she thought.
Back on the road, the van chugging along at what seemed to be its top speed of forty-five miles per hour, she called the detective who had handled Hayley’s case.
“And you are?” asked the woman on the other end of the line, who identified herself as Dispatcher Norris.
“I�
�m a researcher for Novo. It’s a journalism site,” Aloa explained. “We’re doing a story about Hayley Poole. She died in your jurisdiction.”
“You got a case number?” Dispatcher Norris asked, seeming not to care about journalism or a girl’s death for that matter. Aloa glanced at her notebook and gave the number to the woman.
“Oh yeah, Detective Walton. He retired right after that. Let me give you to Chuck,” she said, and before Aloa could object, she found herself listening to Neil Young’s “Old Man.” Interesting hold music.
“Detective Charles Torres here,” answered a gruff male voice halfway through the song.
Aloa explained who she was.
“Now why do you want to be digging up that case?” Detective Torres asked.
“We’re not digging it up, Detective. We’re doing a piece on Ms. Poole. She was quite an accomplished athlete.”
“Not accomplished enough, apparently,” Detective Torres snorted.
It had been less than thirty seconds and Aloa already disliked the man.
“Can you tell me why Detective Walton didn’t interview the third witness at the campout or the men who showed up with guns?” Aloa decided it wouldn’t hurt to let her claws show.
“You inferring Detective Walton didn’t do his job?”
“I’m not inferring anything. I’m just asking why an investigation of a woman’s death didn’t include an interview with the last people who saw her alive, at least two of them in possession of guns.”
“Because, Aloha—” Detective Torres gave an exaggerated sigh.
“Aloa,” she corrected.
“Because, Miss Hawaiian Tropic Tan, the girl’s friends didn’t have a name for the third guy, only that he was called Boots, and maybe you think you’ve got some magic internet wand or something, but that isn’t enough to find somebody. Plus, the men with guns, Carl and Pete? Well, they’re fine, upstanding young men and your little runner gal and her friends were camping on sacred land. The Paiute hold that place holy, but some of those yuppie climbers don’t seem to agree. You want people drinking and stringing ropes all over your church, eh? They ran off your friends like they have every right to do; then they went home. We didn’t need to ask them anything.”
“A sacred site?” Aloa started.
The detective cut her off. “You can look it up. There’s a lawsuit, newspaper stories. Carl and Pete have had to run off people before. They’re a couple of the best, you ask me.”
“What about the shell casing?”
“That was from a Glock 19. Carl and Pete had rifles. Plenty of people go shooting out on those roads. We can’t be chasing every bullet casing we find.”
“How do you know they didn’t follow the girl?” Aloa began, only to be interrupted again by the detective.
“How do I know? Because I know those guys. They don’t own a Glock or a pistol or nothing like that. Plus the sister, the one who gave the alibi, happens to be my wife. I know for a fact she didn’t lie. So you tell those nosy website friends of yours that we may not live in a big city, but we know how to do our jobs.”
The sound of Detective Torres slamming down the phone left a ringing in Aloa’s ear.
CHAPTER 13
His ribs felt as if they had been hit by a sledgehammer, the weight of the steel against his chest was a tight band. He struggled for breath and, for a moment, thought of Lopez. Shot once in the head and shoved into an open cesspool, the rumor spreading that he had not died from the bullet but from drowning in a great vat of piss and shit.
“Hey, are you listening?” said the intruder, the one who’d come in with his big silver pickup claiming to be a combat vet, saying he thought the alternator was acting up. The one who’d started asking about Hayley’s stuff and making him feel all the old things he didn’t like to feel and then, when he showed him the knife, had gunned the engine. The concrete wall was cold and hard against his back.
“Medic,” he groaned.
Bullets hiss when they’re close. Cover your ears and open your mouth after you throw the grenade. Nobody gets left behind.
“There aren’t any medics. Where’s the stuff, loony tune?”
“She told me to keep it, Sergeant Herc,” he said.
“I’m not Sergeant Herc, you idiot. Where’s the girl’s things?”
Observe the target. Allow the throwing arm to continue forward naturally once the grenade is released.
“I’m not going to ask you again. What did you do with it?” asked his tormentor.
“Gone.”
Throw the grenade, Private Rabren. Do it like I said.
“Gone where?” demanded the intruder.
“She took it, Sarge.”
“Who took it?”
“The one who was supposed to have it. She took what remained.”
“What’s her name, dammit?”
“It was Snow. Snow came.”
“Come on, buddy.” A hand pressed his head downward against the hood of the truck. No air now.
After throwing the grenade, lie on the ground.
“Snow,” he wheezed. “Her name. Reporter.”
The hand pushed even harder now. Darkness pressed.
“Attaboy, Calvin. You’ve been a big help there, buddy.”
CHAPTER 14
Aloa walked through the shadowed tunnels of the financial district, her head full of what Emily had said. She’d dropped off Doc’s van at his apartment and was now headed to the hotel where Jordan Connor worked. She’d thought that, despite Emily’s wild accusations, it wouldn’t hurt to check out what Jordan had to say.
Above her were banks and wealth management firms. Below her were the rotting hulls of ships that had carried the same kind of fortune seekers to the city during the great Gold Rush. The fever for wealth was so infectious, it was said, entire crews would abandon their ships to look for gold the minute they arrived. Eventually, dirt and rocks were shoved over the abandoned hulls, adding land where there had been water before. Some forty ships in all were buried beneath North Beach and the Financial District.
Dreams above and dreams underfoot, Aloa thought. So much remains hidden.
She passed men and women talking industriously on their phones. Heard horns honk, engines rev. The smell of diesel filled the air.
Only a small sign announced the Hotel L’s location. Aloa pushed her way through the front doors.
The walls were brick, in a nod to the city’s past, the floors covered with thick carpet that hushed conversation. The bar was in a far corner and behind its rich wood counter was a woman who looked like a poster for the benefits of healthy living. She had a wide mouth, blue eyes, and a straight nose that hinted either of excellent breeding or excellent plastic surgery. Her long, gold-red hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and a tight black shirt showed off high breasts and a taut body. JORDAN, the nametag on her shirt announced.
Aloa watched for a moment as Jordan poured expensive scotch for two men in business suits and gave them a brilliant smile. She was the kind of woman who could set off old feelings in Aloa. “Would it kill you to try to look pretty like the other girls?” Aloa’s mother had asked for most of her teenage life.
Aloa looked down at her jeans, her Timberlands, and the now-wrinkled shirt she wore and told herself she didn’t need to measure herself against women like Jordan Connor, but the warning was about as useful as trying to resurrect the rotten ships from their resting places and sail away.
Jordan was smiling at something the businessmen had said. Aloa thought of Hayley’s torn feet, the eye plucked from its socket, the cells in her body heating until they burst. Was jealousy enough of a motive for a death like that? Aloa thought not. Most murders that resulted from jealousy were quick: a gunshot, a stab wound, a blow to the head. She approached the bar.
“Welcome to Hotel L,” Jordan said, turning away from the businessmen. “What can I get for you today?”
Her greeting was smooth, professional.
“A Diet Coke,” Aloa said.
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“Coming up,” Jordan said, opening a can and pouring it into a tall glass filled with ice.
Aloa noticed an edge of dark ink peeking from beneath Jordan’s uniform sleeve but could not make out the tattoo’s design.
“Are you enjoying your stay with us?” Jordan asked, settling the soft drink on a napkin in front of Aloa.
“Actually, I live in the city. I came hoping to have a word with you.”
Jordan stilled, her body language indicating wariness.
“I’m a researcher for Novo,” Aloa said. “We’re doing a story about Hayley Poole. I understand you were a friend of hers.”
Jordan glanced down the bar toward the two men. “I’m working,” she said.
Aloa followed Jordan’s eyes. “It doesn’t seem too busy. I just need a few minutes.”
“Sorry,” Jordan said.
Aloa reached a hand into her pocket and laid a fifty-dollar bill on the bar. “Keep the change,” she said. She could afford to be generous. It wasn’t her money.
Jordan eyed the cash. “There’s not much to tell. She killed herself.”
“It’s the why that concerns me.” Aloa took a sip of her Coke to allow Jordan time to consider.
“If someone else comes, I’ll have to see to them,” Jordan said.
Aloa pushed the bill toward Jordan. She pocketed it in a single move.
“Did Hayley seem depressed to you?” Aloa asked. Start out with nonthreatening questions, gain whatever trust was available.
“Of course Hayley was depressed.” Jordan kept her voice low. “She lost a sponsor and her shins were a mess. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to finish our next race, which would have meant the movie we were doing would show her breaking down, quitting. That’s never good.”
“I guess not,” Aloa said. “How about worried, a little paranoid even?”
“Maybe. It was more like she was biting the hand that fed her, saying corporations mess up the purity of sports.”
Aloa cocked her head.
“You know, like professional athletes do what they do but in the back of their minds there’s always the fact they have to do more to keep their sponsors happy. They have to make sure stuff goes viral, that they get likes and views, maybe even land on TV. So maybe you take chances, do stuff you wouldn’t do otherwise to get noticed. Or maybe you do the opposite and back off from stuff that sponsors think is too dangerous. Lots of those guys say it doesn’t happen but it does. It’s part of the gig.”
See Her Run Page 7
