Broken Heartland (7 page)

Englishman tore a couple of pages from his notebook and gave them to her, along with a spare pen so she could make notes. She felt stupid for not thinking to bring a notebook of her own.

“Mr. Juhnke and I are going to have a chat with Mr. Gamble, who happens to lead the school chorus. His car was parked near the bus barn when the first driver arrived this morning. And there's a student I want to talk to. But you start with the Dodge and then make those phone calls. And report back to me. In an hour, say, or the minute you learn anything I need to know.” She might have forgotten a notebook, but she did have her cell phone.

She found her Civic in the parking lot. Checking the Dodge wouldn't be as glamorous as peeking in windows and testing doors at the Bible camp, or flashing her badge at anyone who thought she had no business nosing around. But it would help her dad in an important way. And she did have the badge she'd wanted. She was official. She'd find someone to flash it to before the day was out.

But those calls…. That wasn't going to be fun, or easy. The people she talked to wouldn't be able to see her badge over a phone. Even when she explained her new official capacity, she wasn't likely to inspire confessions. She would still be Heather English in their minds—the sheriff's kid, not the latest member of Benteen County's law enforcement team.

Chucky Williams was getting a trombone out of the trunk of the family Ford as she headed toward Main Street. She waved, but he ducked down and pretended not to see her. He was probably embarrassed that she'd had to save him from a bad case of bullying. Gratitude apparently didn't last very long in teenage boys. Nor had Chucky's commitment to the clarinet. Hadn't he tortured her with that instrument when she last babysat for him?

Heather turned right on Main and glanced back at Chucky, now nearly to the entrance to the high school. It startled her when she hit a black walnut. But not half as bad as it startled Chucky. He hit the ground like he was in downtown Baghdad.

It had been the clarinet. She remembered now, because he'd complained he couldn't play brass instruments because they made his lips numb. So why had he changed to trombone?

She smiled at herself as she avoided more walnuts with a bit of slalom-like steering. Was this what being a deputy did to you? Turned you distrustful of clarinetists who traded for trombones? If there'd been time, she would have gone back and made him explain. Lord, Heather thought, she hadn't been in law enforcement ten minutes and already she was developing a cop's inclination for suspicion.

***

The Epperson girl was tall, almost as tall as Mad Dog, and pretty, with a figure guaranteed to draw passes. Mad Dog understood Mark's interest in her, even if she proved unable to speak in complete sentences.

“Nobody else has called me on this,” she said—a complete sentence. Mark was onto something here. “I'm not sure whether they don't pay attention or they just don't recognize what I'm playing.”

“If I had to guess, I'd say Kinky Friedman isn't widely known by Pastor Goodfellow's flock. But that was pretty obviously not ‘Amazing Grace.' I'm surprised you haven't had complaints.”

She shrugged. “None yet. I give them ‘Amazing Grace' on Sundays, and I play for choir practices. Maybe they put up with my practice sessions rather than risk losing me.”

“You're good,” Mad Dog said, “but they could find another decent piano player. And I'm thinking they will, if they catch on. The people who run this church don't have much of a sense of humor.”

“Or forgiveness. Yeah, I know. But I don't really care anymore. I turn twenty-one next week, and then I'm outta here. My uncle runs a bar in Vegas. He can use a piano player. He says if I dress right, play a few bawdy songs, and flirt a little, I can make fifty bucks an hour in tips. No way to match that in Kansas.”

No legal way, Mad Dog had to admit. Not that it was his business. “Actually,” he said, “I didn't drop by to act as a music critic. I'm looking for Mark Brown. His dad said I might find him hanging around you.”

She smiled. “Yeah. Mark's nice. I've spent some time with him lately. But I haven't seen him since Friday.”

“His dad hasn't seen him either. Mark was supposed to be looking after my place while I was out of town. He doesn't seem to have done that either. You have any idea where he might be?”

She put a long, supple index finger to her chin and bit her lower lip. “No,” she said. “Friday, that's when I told him about Vegas. He took it kind of hard. I thought that was why I hadn't seen him. That he was off pouting somewhere.”

Mad Dog remembered how much it hurt when the girl you loved told you she was through with you. Still hurt, in his case, since the same girl had gone and disappeared on him twice now. The second time was just a couple of years ago, when the wind energy company she'd tried to bring back to Benteen County went bankrupt, sending her and her money to a nation where the U.S. had no extradition treaty.

“When you say he took it hard…?”

“No way.” She understood what he was alluding to immediately and waved a hand in dismissal. “Mark's not the suicidal type. Besides, I told him from the start we were only temporary.”

It seemed Mad Dog might not be the only guy who refused to hear what he didn't want to. “But you haven't heard from him and neither have his folks. And my place got trashed. Does that sound like Mark to you?”

“You're starting to scare me.”

Mad Dog had been looking for a thoughtless boy who hadn't fulfilled an obligation. But this was turning into something else. He didn't think it was possible, but he had to ask. “Mark wouldn't take his anger at you out on me and my place, would he?”

“No. Mark really likes you. He thinks you're way cool. He's been telling me how he wants to have a wolf and raise buffalo of his own some day.”

“Then where would he go? Who would he talk to when he realized you weren't going to turn into forever?”

She stopped biting her lip and started on her finger. “I don't know.” She shook her head. “Most of his old buddies have moved away. He and Galen Siegrist graduated together. They're fairly close.”

Mad Dog said he'd ask Siegrist.

“Or Mr. Gamble.”

“Gamble, the music teacher at the high school?”

“Yeah. Mark's got a nice voice. He talked about improving it so we could pursue a music career together. But that was weeks ago. And Gamble would probably make him sing hymns, not honky-tonk or heavy metal.”

“I should hope so.” A mellow baritone interrupted them and Mad Dog turned to discover Pastor Goodfellow in the door to the choir room. That was a relief. For just a second, he'd thought he'd seen old Aldus P. Goodfellow's lips move in that brooding portrait on the wall.

***

Mr. Juhnke led the sheriff to the soundproofed room behind the high school's assembly hall stage. Juhnke knocked, politely, but he didn't give anyone time to answer before opening the door.

Chorus was not in session. Three young girls were sitting on the risers where singers usually stood.

“And so I said, like in your dreams….” The blonde one trailed off as she realized she'd lost the attention of her audience.

“Where is everyone?” Juhnke said.

The blonde got to her feet. She was wearing a modest navy blue skirt, a white blouse, and penny loafers. Were penny loafers back?

The sheriff wasn't good at keeping track of the names of kids in the community. They grew up too fast. But this one was pretty obviously a Showalter. He'd had a classmate, a Showalter, who'd looked almost identical to this one, right down to the penny loafers.

“Uh,” she said. It was obvious she didn't want to field this question. “Some of them were hurt in that bus crash this morning.”

“So that leaves, what, six missing?” Juhnke said. “And Gamble. He's supposed to be teaching this class. Where is Mr. Gamble?”

The girl fluttered her hands, another Showalter trait. Lord, the sheriff thought, this would be his Showalter's granddaughter—proof he didn't need about how time flew.

“I haven't seen him all day.”

Juhnke was incredulous. Also embarrassed, if the sheriff was reading him right. This was Juhnke's school and he was supposed to know what was going on. He was the man in charge, but things were happening on his watch that he wasn't aware of. That was bad enough, but having the sheriff right here to witness his failure, that made it intolerable.

“Let me get this straight,” Juhnke said. “You girls are enrolled in chorus this hour, right?”

There were bright red splotches on the Showalter girl's cheeks. Her companions kind of sidled off, out of Juhnke's direct gaze, as if he might somehow, later, fail to recall their involvement.

“Yes.” The girl's voice cracked a little.

“But your teacher and some of your classmates aren't here and so you're just sitting around chatting and not reporting their absence to the office?”

“Well, they usually aren't here.”

“Excuse me?” Juhnke seemed on the verge of a Krakatoa impersonation.

The sheriff decided to get involved. “You know where they are?”

“Well, sure,” the girl said. “Mr. Gamble left me in charge, so I didn't think there was anything to report.”

“Where are they?” the sheriff prompted.

“Our voices, they aren't full enough,” she tried to explain.

Juhnke was red as a Kansas sunset and sputtering. Maybe Krakatoa wasn't big enough. Maybe he would mimic a supernova.

“Tell us where they are, please,” the sheriff said.

“Choir practice. It's a cappella.”

“Choir?” Juhnke's voice was all funny and high pitched, like steam coming from a safety valve. The girls jumped, but he hadn't really gone off. Not yet. “Choir, not chorus?”

“Where's this choir practice held?” the sheriff asked again.

“In the basement, Sheriff English, sir. In that old classroom next to the boiler.”

“We don't have a choir,” Juhnke stammered. “And we haven't had classes in the basement for years.” The sheriff didn't think Juhnke was going to explode, after all. Not until he found Gamble, anyway.

“You don't have one of the school buses you had yesterday, either,” the sheriff said. “Come on. Let's take a look.”

***

Heather found the Dodge wagon out behind the Texaco. Except it wasn't the Texaco anymore. Now it was just GAS —FOOD, thanks to Texaco's merger with Chevron. Gas—Food didn't work for Heather. She wanted the Texaco back. She wanted Buffalo Springs to be just the way it always had been. She knew, when she let herself think about it, that what she really wanted was a Buffalo Springs with her mother in it. She sighed and parked around by the entrance to the restrooms. When she got out and advanced on the Dodge, she kept a hand on the edge of her unbuttoned jacket, ready to flip the badge and justify her presence. No one paid her any attention.

The school bus wasn't there. It must have been towed back to the bus barn.

The Dodge was almost unrecognizable. Heather wasn't a car expert, but it was the only vehicle back there that was new, black, and covered with chunks of fresh earth and vegetation. She tried the driver's door. It wouldn't open. Neither would the back door. They weren't locked, they were buckled.

There wasn't any glass in the windows, but she didn't want to crawl in if it wasn't necessary. Too many shards, even if it was safety glass. She tried the rear lift gate, but it wouldn't budge either. The back door on the passenger's side was open a crack. She got both hands on it and pried and it reluctantly gave way. She looked for blood, oil, or other unpleasant substances that might spoil her clothes, didn't see any, and crawled inside.

Englishman had checked the glove box and the sun visor for registration papers. That didn't mean she shouldn't look there again. She wormed her way between the front seats, brushing aside the spray of safety glass with her jacket sleeve. Nothing in either location, nor in the doors' cubby holes either. She did find a crumpled Jack-in-the-Box sack under the driver's seat, empty but for dirty napkins. She crawled out of the car and set it out on the grass to take back as evidence.

The back seats were folded down to increase storage space. Presumably, the boy who died had been tied up and tossed back there. She opened both back seats, though, just in case. And found nothing. She folded them down again and ducked back inside to examine the rear. There was a storage compartment under the carpets there. Only, of course, it was meant to be opened from the other direction. The floor accordioned up toward her. She was still young and limber, though, and she managed to open it without cutting herself on the jagged strip of roof that appeared to have been opened by a gigantic can opener. There was something in there, netted to the passenger's side—a compact ice chest, it looked like. Getting it out and into her half of the rear compartment was another struggle.

Someone had wrapped the ice chest with clear tape and then written, over and over again, “Sealed for delivery,” along the edge in magic marker. She thought the handwriting was something the recipient would recognize, and was meant to ensure this package would arrive unopened.

Now, what to do with it? Benteen County didn't have a crime lab. The chest had to be opened, though her dad wasn't likely to think she was the one who should do it. But he was busy, and once she knew what was inside—drugs, money, a decapitated head—Heather would know what to do next. She should call Englishman, she supposed, not that he could do anything with it she couldn't do herself. She got her cell phone out and thought about it for a minute. Then, since her phone took pictures, she documented the container before her miniature Swiss Army knife slit neatly through the tape.

It was cold in the ice chest, but there was more water in there than ice. It should have gotten where it was going before now. A small box swam atop the ice water. And an envelope. She made digital images of both, then opened the box. It was filled with four tiny test tubes. Each held a nearly colorless fluid. None were labeled. She took another picture before closing the box and returning it to the chest.