A Deadly Business (14 page)

“In a nutshell, special education. Perhaps if he were in a smaller classroom, maybe with an aide, Dylan might flourish.”

“Are Jackson and Dylan friends?” Mia asked.

“That could be too strong a word. But I have seen them together. That’s about all I can tell you. Those two and Manny.”

“Flores?” Charlie shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. “They’re all friends?”

“They’re part of the same loose group of boys.” Peggy held her hand up and tilted it back and forth. “As I said, neither the best nor the worst.”

Charlie thought about the three boys’ records. “Have you ever had to discipline them here at school?”

“Dylan stole a teacher’s purse last year. We found it in his locker, but everything was still there. He said he had no idea how it got there. I had my suspicions.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Which means?” Charlie prompted.

“Things have gone missing around Jackson too, but somehow they never turn up in his possession. At least not that we can find.”

“So you think Jackson took the purse and hid it in Dylan’s locker?”

“I didn’t say that,” Peggy said. “It’s just that it seemed out of character for Dylan—and it was Jackson’s teacher.”

“How about Manny?” Mia asked.

“I suspended Manny three days last month for throwing a trash can at another kid. He said he was being picked on.” She shrugged. “He may well have been right.”

The first teacher they talked to, Stacy Michaels, wore skinny jeans, a hoodie, and red Nikes. She didn’t look much older than the students.

“This is my second year with Teach for America,” she said with a sigh. “I came in here all starry-eyed, thinking I was going to save the world. Frankly, I was an idiot. I can’t even save myself, let alone these kids.”

Charlie nodded. A verbal response seemed unnecessary. The floodgates were already open.

“They’re not the least bit grateful. They talk back. They’re disrespectful. Don’t they think I know what they’re doing, texting under their desks? Nobody just smiles down at an empty lap. And you don’t even want to know what they get up to in the bathrooms. They run wild. The only thing this job is doing is helping me pay off my student loans. I don’t dare turn my back on them. I lock my purse in my desk, and even then I don’t bring any credit cards to work anymore. Last year one of the kids managed to slip my Nordstrom card out of my wallet and charge $630 worth of stuff before I’d even sat down to dinner that night.”

“Okay.” Mia drew the word out. “What can you tell me about Dylan and Jackson?”

“Don’t forget Manny. None of those kids are angels. All three of them skip school. Dylan stole another teacher’s purse last year, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen Jackson out on that sidewalk”—she pointed—“smoking a cigarette. Sometimes he’ll be flashing something around, like a CD, and you just know he stole it. And there’re times the way he looks at me just makes me shiver. His eyes are so cold. Even Manny, the one they’re calling a hero? I know for a fact that he assaulted another child this year.”

“Do you think either Dylan or Jackson is capable of understanding that his actions have consequences?” Mia said.

“To be honest,” Stacy said darkly, “I wouldn’t put anything past either of them. And I think they know exactly what they’re doing.”

Gloria MacDonald looked like she was in her late forties, but Charlie had to recalibrate her age when she said she had been teaching for thirty-nine years. She had coffee-colored skin and wore her black hair in a bob. The bangs set off her large, deep-set eyes.

“What can you tell me about Jackson and Dylan?” Mia asked. “I understand you’re teaching both of them.”

“Honey, I’ve taught everybody.” Gloria flapped one hand. “I even taught Jackson’s mom. And it’s not because I’ve been in this school for a long time, although I have. It’s because the two are only fifteen years apart.” She raised one eyebrow and gave her head a little shake. “If Jackson applied himself, he could graduate high school. Even college. But I’m afraid he’s not applying himself to the right things.”

“What about Dylan?”

She shook her head. “That boy’s got nine brothers and sisters, and there’s not enough love, food, or space in that family for half that number.”

Charlie exchanged a look with Mia. He couldn’t imagine raising one child, let alone ten of them. With that many siblings, Dylan must basically be raising himself.

“He’s not a bad kid. I had him to my house for dinner a few weeks ago. I think he came back for fourths.” Gloria smiled at the memory. “He played with my little grandchildren. Now would I have done that if I thought he was a danger to others?” She leaned forward, her face fierce. “Look, his IQ tests out at eighty-five. Couple that with the fact that he’s a juvenile and you’ve got no case. I’ve been around the block more times than I care to count, but I really can’t see him doing this. Deliberately dropping a shopping cart on that poor lady? I find it hard to believe.”

“We have him on video,” Mia said.

“I heard that. But Dylan’s suggestible.”

“Are you saying you think it was Jackson’s idea?”

She pursed her lips. “All I’m saying is whenever something bad happens, I always check to see where Jackson is.”

CHAPTER 27

L
ost in thought, Mia walked with Charlie through the school’s parking lot and back to his car. It had all seemed so clear yesterday, when she was standing at Tamsin’s bedside, vowing to punish those responsible for such unthinkable violence.

But the pictures the teachers and the vice principal had painted of the boys were more nuanced. Dylan was troubled. Jackson was trouble. Even Manny was something of a question mark. Dylan and Jackson might both be fifteen, they might both have helped heave the shopping cart over the wall, but it was clear Mia would have to weigh the fates of the two boys separately. Was one a vulnerable boy and the other a thug? Or were they both victims of their own circumstances?

It was hard enough to know with her own child if she had set him along the right path. As Charlie got into the car, Mia used her cell phone to check on the location of Gabe’s.

“Whatcha doing?” Charlie glanced over curiously.

“I have an app on Gabe’s phone that lets me see where he is. I just wanted to make sure he got to school okay, since I left the house
before either of them was up.” She relaxed when she saw that he was right where he should be.

Charlie’s own cell began to ring.

“Detective Carlson.” Charlie pressed the Bluetooth earpiece into his ear as he put his keys in the ignition.

“What?” As he listened, his mouth drew down into a frown. “How can you say that?” His voice rose. “Did you even read the report? . . . Then how do you explain the fact that he had injuries on the left side of his face but all the other injuries were to the right side of his body?”

Mia froze.

“No, bodies don’t move in unexpected ways.” Charlie was nearly shouting. “Haven’t you heard of the laws of physics?”

A sour taste filled her mouth. She bit her lip to keep from retching.

“What about the problem with his brakes that I told you about yesterday? Huh? Did you take that into consideration? Someone tampered with his car before the accident. Someone wanted this guy dead and they didn’t stop until he was. Only I guess you guys don’t want to hear that.” Charlie tried to say more, but it was clear that the person on the other end wasn’t letting him get a word in edgewise.

“Don’t think this is the end of this,” Charlie finally said, but by then Mia could tell he was talking to a dead connection.

Mia swallowed her nausea. “So that was Puyallup County?”

“They’re not gonna reopen the investigation into Scott’s ‘accident.’ ” Charlie’s sarcastic spin on the last word made it nearly a growl. “They said his death was clearly due to driver error exacerbated by alcohol, and that his injuries were consistent with the accident. They said they didn’t see anything ‘new’ or ‘more’ to investigate. To them, it’s a single-car crash where the only person who was injured was the deceased driver, so there’s no one left to prosecute. They just shrugged at the evidence. I guess since nobody
wrote on the wall, ‘I did it,’ they’re gonna cut it loose. When I talked to them yesterday, they even asked about my relationship with you. It’s like they think there’s a hidden motive.”

Mia could imagine how he had approached the whole thing. Charlie could be a little too . . . focused. He was the kind of guy who sometimes battered down the door before he even tried the knob.

So it was possible that he had rubbed them the wrong way.

He exhaled forcefully and then started the car. “Besides, if they came back and said oops, they were wrong, what good would it do them?” He answered his own question. “None. There’s no advantage in reopening it, not as far as they’re concerned. You’ve heard what they call Puyallup County. Mayberry with Audis.” Once filled with farms, the county had become a bedroom community for Seattle, for people who wanted a little acreage so they could dabble in wine grapes or stable their kids’ horses. “They’ve got a low crime rate, at least on paper. And they seem determined to keep it that way.”

“So it’s over then.” Mia felt an odd sense of relief. Did she really want to know what had happened that terrible night Scott died? Even if the truth was different from what she had been told, Scott was still dead. And if learning the truth did change anything, it would probably be for the worse.

“It’s not over, Mia.” Charlie’s jaw tensed. He was driving too fast for her taste, but she decided not to say anything. “Nobody says we can’t look into this on our own.”

Mia remembered the day she and Scott got married. How badly her hand had shaken when she put the ring on his finger. They had repeated the ancient vows, promising to love in sickness and in health, for better or for worse. Only a few weeks ago she had stopped wearing her wedding ring. But even though death had parted them, even though Scott had cheated on her in so many ways, didn’t she still owe him something?

Mia took a deep breath. Let it out. “You’re right.”

“First off we need to talk to the guy who discovered the accident. If we get lucky, it’s possible he even saw the killer leaving the scene.”

She nodded.

“I’ll see if he’ll meet us where it happened. We can check out if there’re any houses nearby, any other potential witnesses.”

“Are you going to tell the guy that this is unofficial, just two citizens asking questions?” Mia raised an eyebrow.

“I might let slip where I work.”

“Be careful, Charlie. You don’t want to be accused of abusing your badge.”

Charlie nodded and shrugged at the same time. “I also want to see if the owner of the Jade Kitchen in Coho City will meet us. We can see what his explanation is for the low cash receipts. And if they have surveillance cameras, they might still have footage from that night.”

“From seven months ago?” Mia thought it unlikely.

“You never know. We can also see if anyone working there remembers who Scott was talking to that night.”

Mia took a deep breath. “I might stop by Oleg’s Gems and Jewels. Give him back the paperwork. Say I found it in Scott’s things. See what he has to say about the IRS and how Scott handled his finances.” She took a deep breath. “And I want to ask him about the ring.”

Charlie grunted and shook his head. “Nuh-uh. I don’t want you going by yourself.”

“No offense, Charlie, but it’s pretty clear you’re a cop even when you’re in plain clothes. I’m talking about dropping by his store in the middle of the day. Very casual. In and out. I just want to see how he reacts, and you’ll skew it.”

“I don’t like it.” His jaw was set.

“I didn’t say you had to.”

He made a little humming noise. “That app you had on Gabe’s phone?”

“Yeah?” Mia didn’t know where he was going.

“Can you set it up so I can keep tabs on you?” Charlie parked across the street from the boys’ apartment complex. “Just until this is over?”

“I don’t know, Charlie.” Mia’s mouth twisted. “Isn’t that kind of weird? Big Brother-y?”

“Oh, and it’s not weird when you have it on Gabe’s phone?”

“I just want to make sure he’s safe and not getting into any trouble.”