County Line (11 page)

“My point is that woman knew what we wanted, but played it cagey. Why?”

Maybe he’s right. Or maybe it’s guarded, small town curiosity. The Elephant Man and his brooding partner appear out of nowhere to ask questions, it’s bound to raise an eyebrow. As far as I’m concerned, if we get people talking, maybe sooner or later word will get to someone who knows something. In a town of 937, odds are we’ll stumble across them sooner or later.

- 10 -

Cold Shoulder

After we eat, Pete follows me onto the street where I stand for a moment, gasping for air. A woman in a pickup drives by, waves to us as if she knows us. We’re a long way from home, and I feel out of my element in ways I never have before, not even as an MP in Vietnam. Pete is right about me. I do think the world ends at the edge of my usual stomping grounds, Powell to Alberta, Eighty-Second to the river. Even crossing the Willamette into downtown Portland feels like an adventure now. I’ve become a smug homer.

“Now what, Skin? Is there a plan?”

Our options are limited. We ought to be working our way through the remaining Whittakers. A long shot, but more likely to yield fruit than asking random strangers if they happen to remember a girl who lived here twenty years ago. Back when I was a cop, I spent countless hours on such cold calls. The prospect now fills me with dread.

“Skin—?”

I can feel the tension radiating off Peter like heat off blacktop. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“What are you talking about?”

I don’t answer, head east. Pete hesitates, as if he doesn’t think I’m serious, then trots after me. I’m not moving quickly. Not sure I can move quickly in the heat and dead air, but I’m half a step faster than Pete. We pass a barber shop which also offers tanning, a nondescript white clapboard building on the next corner.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Look.” I point to a restaurant across the street. The sign features an odd little drawing of a wizard coyly tilting his head. “We can have pizza for lunch. Do you think it’s any good?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“You’re the one who gave me shit about being an elitist urban prick.”

“So that means I have psychic knowledge of the quality at Village Inn Pizza.”

“Hard to guess what you haven’t bothered to share with me.”

“Christ.”

The next block has Foreman Hardware, a hair and nail salon, the post office. I wonder what gets sold off around here often enough to support the auction company across from the hardware store. As I recall from Pete’s research into the minutiae of southwest Ohio demographics, per capita income is nothing to bust a nut over.

“Where are we going, Skin?”

“How did you know Jimmie wasn’t doing well financially?”

“What?”

“Ruby Jane never said anything about it. She always talked like he was richer than God.”

“What’s this about?”

“It’s time for you to stop holding out on me. So what’s the story with Jimmie?”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You hung out with him enough to know where he did his drinking.”

“So?”

“So Ruby Jane vanishes, no word to anyone. In her absence, a stranger dies in her apartment. A day later, her brother is killed by a hit-and-run driver. What we know is Jimmie and RJ are tied together financially, but you say he’s on the skids.”

“You think Jimmie’s death is connected to RJ’s disappearance?”

“All I know is Jimmie was dodgy with us.” We cross the street, turn left. More brassy sunlight, more bucolic village byway. I can still taste my blueberry muffin on the back of my tongue. “Who’s Biddy Denlinger?”

“The first time I heard of Biddy Denlinger was when you did.”

“Tell me about Jimmie.”

It takes him a moment, but after some huffing and puffing, he spills. “We started getting together after RJ and I broke up. Just shooting the shit over beers and gin-and-tonics. He got laid off around the first of the year, something to do with real estate going sour. He had a little money of his own, but mostly what he had was his interest in Uncommon Cup.”

“What else did you two talk about?”

He looks like he’s chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“You met him. He’s good at talking without saying anything.”

Jimmie’s not the only one. I continue along, pulling long deep breaths through my nose. A flock of starlings drops out of a maple tree and into the yard we’re passing. They peck at the grass and shit on an accumulation of kids toys in the lawn. A woman steps out onto her porch and bangs on the bottom of a sauce pan with a spoon until the birds scatter.

“Remember the day Ruby Jane got shot?”

Pete doesn’t say anything. Of course he remembers.

“Caught us all by surprise.” I met Peter the first time at the crack of dawn, day after Christmas, when he reported a dead woman in the playground at Irving Park. Susan and I got the call-out. The next day, we followed up on an anonymous tip and found a coat soaked with a second victim’s blood in Peter’s garbage can. Ruby Jane was with him when we brought him in for questioning. Took us another day to realize Pete was being set up by a fucked-all-to-hell psycho who somehow resented him for discovering the dead body in the first place. We weren’t quick enough on the uptake though, because the guy went after Ruby Jane. Almost killed her.

I got to break the news of her shooting to Pete. Leg and stomach. Nasty. She almost didn’t make it. They’d met the morning before, but somehow the chemical reaction caught, exothermic from the start. Pete blamed himself even though, as I explained at the time, only one person was responsible. The bastard who pulled the trigger.

We stop outside a small brick and columns building in the middle of a trimmed lawn, a Masonic Temple. Back in Portland, the Masonic Temple on Hawthorne houses a pub and an annual holiday fair.

“I get it, Skin. You took me to the hospital that day. You covered for me when that piece of shit died in my house—”

“That’s not—”

“No. Fuck this. He almost killed Ruby Jane, he almost killed me. But whatever. I appreciate you looking out for me. I always have. But just because you did me a favor a few years ago doesn’t mean I have to put up with your mind games now.”

“I’m not the one who ran away, Pete.”

The starlings return, tumbling off the roof of the Masonic Temple in waves. I feel their high-pitched chittering in my teeth. Up the street, the woman with the sauce pan reappears. The birds fly toward her, but as she raises her pan they swoop en masse toward us. I lower my head, flinch as something strikes my shoulder. For a moment I think it’s one of the birds, but then I see Peter’s fingers poking the damp fabric of my t-shirt.

“Is there a point to this?”

I sigh. “There was a time a few years ago when you were a hair’s breadth from jail time. A day later, you and I both walked out of Ruby Jane’s shop minutes before that freak walked in and shot her. We both looked at him, for chrissakes. The point is you don’t always see what’s right in front of you.”

The exasperation plays across his face. “I can’t believe this.” He turns away from me and starts down the street.

“Pete, where are you going?”

He doesn’t turn around, but I can hear him anyway. “I’m going to look for Ruby Jane. You can do what you want.”

I let him go. He won’t get far on foot.

Neither will I, but I still have the car keys. I retrace our steps to the rental car. Missy is looking at me through a window of the café, the spear-faced woman taking an order. I don’t know how long it will take Pete to cool off, but I figure I have a little while. I decide to visit the school. If nothing else, I might be able to confirm if Ruby Jane ever attended.

I don’t need Pete’s Google Maps. Valley View High School is a mile or so back the way we came this morning. The school is a long, two-story brick structure all but without windows. I park in a visitor spot, then run my fingers through my hair. In the rear view mirror, I see a guy who looks like he spent the night on a plane and the day in an atmosphere designed to enlarge every capillary. A few students are coming and going in cars from the student lot at the far end of the building, but no one is nearby. I pull off my sweaty t-shirt and put on a fresh one from my pack. There’s not much I can do about my hair; I didn’t think to buy a comb when I was shopping for clothes.

In the office, the woman behind the desk manages to smile despite my unkempt appearance. I tell her my name and give her my spiel. She considers for a moment before reaching for her phone.

“You’ll have to speak with Mister Halstead.”

Halstead turns out to be the vice principal. Ten years younger than me, mid-forties, but with less hair. His white dress shirt and tie are crisp, his face recently-shaved. My precise opposite.

“What is this about?”

I tell him the same thing I told the woman out front, but in addition to my name I add I’m a retired police detective. Halstead strikes me as the kind of guy who’ll respond to a cop.

He frowns and nods. “And how can I help you?”

“There’s been a death in the family.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“My problem is I haven’t been able to find Ruby Jane. My hope was I might track down family in the area.”

“I’m not sure she has family in the area anymore.”

“You remember her then.”

“A bit, yes.” He holds up a finger, then turns in his chair. He takes a tall, slender volume from the bottom shelf of the bookcase behind him. A yearbook. He leafs through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for, then offers the book to me.

The image is small and grainy, but Ruby Jane’s dimples stand out. I think of the snapshot I found in Chase Fairweather’s backpack, reflect on the arc of Ruby Jane over the years. “That’s her.”

“This was my first year here. I taught history and government.”

“Did you know her?”

“Not well. She was in one of my civics classes, but never said much. I knew her better as a basketball player.” He pages through to the girls basketball team portrait. Ruby Jane stands in the back row, second from the right. Next to her, tallest on the team, is another face I recognize. Clarice Moody, according to the text.

“What year is this?” I look at the book cover and answer my own question. 1989.

“She was a junior.”

“Pretty good ball player?”

“Yes, quite good from what I remember.”

“Do you have any others? Senior year?”

“She didn’t come back for her senior year. I believe she transferred.”

“Do you know where?”

Halstead takes the yearbook from me and closes it on his desk, then folds his hands over the cover. “Mister Kadash, here’s the thing. I don’t know you. You could be anyone.”

“I understand. You can check me out. The Portland Police—”

“It doesn’t matter. What I’ve shown you is nothing you couldn’t find out at the Germantown Public Library. But I can’t share confidential information about former students with you.”

“I need someone who might be able to help me find her.”

“I’m sorry, but as I said, to my knowledge, she has no family in the area. That’s the best I can do for you.”

“Perhaps someone else—”

“Mister Kadash, I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”

Outside, the air feels even heavier than it did earlier.

When I pull out of the parking lot, I see the cop coming up behind me, lights spinning. As I slow down and stop, two wheels on the shoulder, I realize I’ve been waiting for this. He’s got someone in the backseat, but I can’t make out the face through the glare on the windshield. By the time he approaches, I have everything ready and the window down.

“May I see your license and registration, please?”

I hand him my driver’s license and the rental car agreement. He inspects them, then me. A big man, heavy and muscular, but not fat. His is natural meat, not the kind of carved muscle you get from a lot of time with the iron. His face is long, with thick red lips and a bulbous nose. He’s not wearing a hat on his shiny, shaved skull.