Dead Girl Moon (16 page)

Cassel had no idea where either of his sons were on the Monday evening Evelyn was killed. Larry lived north of town and kept a very irregular work schedule. Tim lived at home with Scott but he had a separate entrance. Cassel didn’t think Tim had come home that Monday evening before he himself went to bed at ten-thirty. That wasn’t unusual. Tim partied hard most nights during the summer months.

For the first time in years Officer Cassel found himself reluctant to interview a possible suspect. When he tried, Larry brushed him off, saying he had been with a woman on that night and it was none of his dad’s business. The interview was not only brief but hostile. Scott and his older son hadn’t been close for the last few years since Larry had been asked to leave the Highway Patrol Training Academy after an altercation with one of his instructors.

When Cassel asked Tim, the boy told him he’d been with Cunneen earlier that Monday night, visited a few places, and, since he was taking a road trip to see a buddy in Whitefish the next morning, he’d come home early and gone to bed. For the life of him, Scott Cassel couldn’t remember if he’d heard the Mustang’s throaty rumble in the driveway on that particular night.

None of the bulletins or interviews produced a particularly viable suspect. The coroner’s report revealed that the puncture wound came from a rounded half-inch-in-diameter metal rod with rust and bits of black paint on its surface: a rebar, a tire iron, or a large blunted Phillips screwdriver were named as possible weapons. Most likely? A tire iron. The girl did not die of the puncture, however, but from a brain injury caused when the back of her head was smashed against the top point of the open car door, creating a fatal wound to her medulla and stopping her breathing.

Cassel was troubled by his missing witness, the Fitzhugh boy, who apparently fled the morning following their conversation, three days after the murder, stealing his father’s car for a getaway. Sheriff Paint, who had already formed an opinion about the boy’s innocence, was more concerned about another missing witness, Grace Herick, who, after having worked with Evelyn, also fled, possibly holding some key pieces of information. JJ’s fears about invisibility would have been confirmed, as neither department gave her a thought or even realized she was gone.

In the course of his broader investigation, Cassel learned that his missing witness’s father, Tighe Fitzhugh, was relatively new in town. Searching the Western States database, Cassel discovered a possible connection to theft and crimes against property in Idaho and Washington. Paint, similarly researching the name Grace Herick, found a remarkable coincidence. A Grace Herrick, one letter difference in the last name, had been killed in a vehicle accident in Spokane a few days before Grace Herick, one “r,” arrived in Portage. The hunt for both missing witnesses stepped up.

*   *   *

Friday afternoon, an anonymous phone tip changed everything. A muffled voice suggested officers search the small wooden porch of the Fitzhugh studio. Doing so, Paint discovered a souvenir baseball bat, Boise Hawks, wrapped in a pile of rags that turned out to be Evelyn Edmonds’s underwear. A stain on the handle appeared to be blood. Scott Cassel, having received the same tip, picked up Tighe Fitzhugh for questioning.

Paint issued a murder warrant for Mick’s arrest.

50

E
ARLY THE NEXT MORNING
Mick drove to a nearby city park and used the restroom, brushed his teeth with a finger. A maintenance truck was parked next to the Pontiac when he came out of the building. On the other side of it, a police car. The officer behind the wheel was talking to the city guy in the green coveralls. Mick left as unobtrusively as he could and the police car stayed parked.

Wise up! Mick needed to get this outlaw thing down better. Early morning, police patrol the parks looking for vagrants, druggies asleep in their vehicles. Safest place to clean up is a big gas station, a convenience mart thing with a lot of commercial traffic. Live and learn.

*   *   *

Just before noon Mick parked the car around the corner from the library and sat on a bench inside where he could watch the locker. They’d agreed: “Tomorrow, noon, the library.” One o’clock. Two o’clock. Three … Mother of Mercy, he’d never really let himself consider the possibility.
They’re not coming.

He went to the locker and shook the door. It was still locked. They hadn’t come back.

“You need something there?” Some man with a plastic name badge.

“I was just seeing if my sisters are still in town,” Mick said, rubbing his nose to mask his face and keeping his eyes on the floor like he was embarrassed. “Uh, thanks, I’ll check back.” He was moving toward the glass exit doors. Could the sheriff have circulated his photo to public buildings in neighboring states? He thought they shared the same government Internet system. Did Portage High have a picture officers could have used? Mick didn’t believe so.

“What they look like?” This from behind him, a female voice.

When he turned, a woman janitor was facing him, hand on the mop sticking out of her rolling water pail.

“At the lockers? Pretty? Kinda slim?” she asked.

Mick stopped and walked back. What the hell? Nearly everything he’d been doing lately was a risk.

“Dropped my broom,” the woman said. “She bent right over and got it up. Nadine don’t meet many like that anymore,” she said, shaking her head.

Mick saw “Nadine” stitched in red on the woman’s uniform.

“Yeah, yes,” he said, “that’s her. One of them. Uh, I’ve been working … I told them I’d give them a ride back—”

“Them girls should be with they folks! Too young to be out travlin’.” The woman frowned at him like it was his fault.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Mick looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to the conversation. Didn’t seem like it. “So”—he faced her again—“you see what she did? Get bags and take off?”

“Well, got more clothes is alls. Early. I just come on. They probly still around. I see ’em I tell ’em you’re looking.”

*   *   *

Mick sat in the car near the building until four, then drove downtown. Party town. Wouldn’t Grace be right in the thick of it?

He went to the boulevard that ended at the big hotel on the lake and rolled slowly down the street that seemed like the town promenade. In this area, the sidewalks were crowded: khaki shorts, bright T-shirts, fathers with smiling families, jocks and fraternity guys cruising, girls with arms around each other, couples chatting in convertibles.
There!
Grace standing by the rail at Macaroni’s sidewalk café. Good place to panhandle. He didn’t see JJ. Where were they staying? He honked, waved. Grace didn’t pay any attention. Mick found a place to pull over in the next block, but when he ran back she was gone.

He cruised the area for the next hour until he began to feel guilty about the gas he was wasting and put the car in a mall’s nearly full parking garage. Inside, he found a bench in front of a fancy store and watched crowds of shoppers. What should he do? Try to find permanent work here? Go back to Portage and face … his dad, the sheriff, the Cassels? Not without the girls. That made him think about the Stovalls’ trailer and Gary.

Over the past months JJ had told Mick a lot about Gary that he wouldn’t have guessed. One, Gary had spent three years in prison for growing dope. Gary and Tina had been caretakers of some old vineyard property north of Napa. Planted bud at the remote edges. Did okay for a couple of years and then, federal bust. Tina was pregnant and had a kid two weeks before she went to a locked women’s facility. The kid died. Gary said Tina had a breakdown and they released her to the state psych hospital. After discharge she stayed with her sister, JJ’s mom, until Gary got paroled. She’d never been the same since.

He moved the family to Portage around ten years ago. Tina had Jon. Gary started an electronics repair business, something he’d learned in the Navy. Hardware store was his collection point for the TVs, radios, DVD players. Pick up the broken, bring back the fixed a couple of times a week. Gave Hammond a cut for a handling fee. That and the dope sales and Grace’s foster care money made a pretty good living.

JJ liked that Gary was kind. Decent to Tina, who’s basically a lump. But JJ hated the drugging and cuffing that Gary did with Jon. “The man’s just ignorant,” JJ told Mick. “Doesn’t know what to do. Those two should never have had kids.”

Not long ago on one of those river nights, Mick had finally opened up a little more to JJ. Told her he thought Gary was a little like his dad. Both men learned their trades in the service. Both did things against the law. He told JJ that he thought his dad loved him. Or maybe not loved him but felt responsible for him. Mick told her that for his part, he didn’t particularly like his father, he didn’t respect him, and that he sure didn’t want to grow up like him.

The problem was, when Mick thought about it, he didn’t know any older man that he wanted to grow up like. Being an adult seemed impossible. Like he had a lid on his future. And Grace? What was her future? Whatever it was, Mick imagined she’d fend for herself, do whatever she needed to. He was surprised to realize he couldn’t picture her being happy.

What about JJ? Who could even appreciate her besides him? Who would know she was full of dreams? Who would listen to her moon stories? Those thoughts stung. Mick knew he only spent time with her because she was there. Handy. His mind was always on Grace. JJ deserved better than that. She deserved better than him. But how would she find it in Portage?

Watching families go store to store wasn’t making him less lonely, it was making him feel worse. Depressed. Envious. Not because he wanted to be buying things, but because he wanted to belong to this ordinary world. Have a real family, a girlfriend, pick a college. Just be regular. Not very damn likely! Though he couldn’t remember doing it before, he thought of praying.
Let there be something for me that I’m not seeing right now.
His father laughed at prayer, but lots of times his father was wrong.

51

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Sunday, shortly after daylight, Mick was back at the library. His neck was stiff and his shoulder ached. Sleeping in the Bonnie was getting old. Sign on the front door said the building didn’t open until noon. He went around the block and parked across the street down a ways, the opposite direction from downtown. Waited.

Grace appeared a little after noon, walked up the steps, through the glass doors. Mick was on her heels, didn’t think she even saw him as she went to the locker.

“Forget something?” He could hear the sarcasm in his voice.

She didn’t look good. Pasty. Tired.

“Hi, Mick,” she said, not much energy. “Sorry about yesterday. JJ’s sick.”

Mick already had a speech practiced about giving your word and letting people down, but now no longer seemed the time to give it. He’d been imagining, hoping for a confrontation if he saw her at all, but Grace didn’t seem to have the juice for that.

“No way. She was fine.”

“No. I mean … she’s been crying a lot. Misses you. Doesn’t like … she’s not so good. After we saw you she sort of shut down. You know how Tina does? Wouldn’t talk, hardly opened her eyes. I couldn’t come down here because I couldn’t leave her and I didn’t want somebody else getting worried and questioning her. A lady at the shelter said she’d watch her this morning so I could get here.”

“You couldn’t come here yesterday? The janitor saw you!” Mick had never hit a girl. Was trying to hold his temper.

“Damn! What’s with you, Mick? All about you? Something’s the matter with JJ!”

“Yeah, and something’s the matter with me. You use me! Pick me up whenever you need something.” Mick could hear a whine in his voice and didn’t like it. Went on. “I drove you here. You didn’t contribute shit. Said I was a danger, and left me. Didn’t show up when you said. Yeah, it’s about me. You treat me like dirt. You would have split again today if I hadn’t caught you.”

“Hey! Simmer down! You got problems with the law, I don’t!”

Too loud. Everybody in forty feet could hear her.

“Yeah, but I don’t deserve it! You said to lie about it! I just reported it so the girl could get buried. I’m not the goddamn criminal!” Mick was starting to wonder why he didn’t just rent a speaker truck and tell the entire city.

“Piss off, Mick! We all got problems! Me, I’m homeless, my friend won’t speak, I’m stranded, selling my butt for chump change. That’s just a little more than I want to handle! I got nothing.”

She didn’t say “for you” but it was there, loud and clear.

“Take me to her.” JJ was the key to the next move.

“It’s a women’s shelter. They won’t let you in.”

“I’ll say I’m her brother.”

“I already told them you were chasing us. I didn’t want you showing up and breaking my story.”

“You…” Mick didn’t know what to say. What could he say? The string of betrayals … “Well for starters, you tell them different. Put the three of us together again. I’m done running. We’re going back to Portage and straighten things out.” Mick noticed Grace looking at his hands. Fists now.

His fury kept him talking. “Fix things at that shelter or I’m going to the police as soon as I walk out this door. I’m telling them I ran away after finding a body and you and JJ are in it with me.”
When did he decide this?

“You can’t do that!” Grace, wild-eyed, hawk in a snare. “You can’t blow everybody up just because your feelings are hurt.”

“Try me.” He knew in that moment he would do it. Truth or consequences. Anything was better than more running. Except in this case, it was probably going to be truth and consequences.

Grace turned back to the locker.

Mick was wondering whether to stop a cop car or find the police station. When he looked up, Grace was standing in front of him with their bags.

“Okay,” she said.

Selling her butt?

52

G
RACE HADN
’
T PLANNED
to tell Mick about her dating game. It slipped out when he pissed her off. It wasn’t like shame. It just wasn’t his business. He’d find out anyway. JJ would spill it, hoping Mick would see what kind of person Grace was and maybe want JJ more. Grace didn’t think that would happen. Mick would keep nosing around, hoping. Grace could practically smell his hunger.