Dead Girl Moon (11 page)

She didn’t intend to sleep, but the motion of the car and the occasional oncoming headlights were almost hypnotizing. She woke late that night to the rough sound of tires on hardpan and loose gravel. The kind of road where they’d gone swimming. Salish River Road. Mr. Fitzhugh had been driving slowly, keeping the dust down. From the backseat JJ could see silhouettes of trees and boulders along the roadside, hatches of white moths swirling in the headlights.

It looked to her like they were getting near the area where they’d gone swimming, where Jon had found the girl. Just above the area where she had walked, detoured around the big rocks. Mr. Fitzhugh slowed because the road ahead was starting to glow near the bend.

Closer, there was a barricade in the headlights, two uniformed men standing in front of it. One man pointed a long flashlight, the other had a rifle down at his side. Mr. Fitzhugh stopped and the man with the flashlight came to his window.

“Pretty late for a drive on a road like this,” the man said. He leaned down and looked inside the car.

Mick’s dad played the guy off. “Well, hell, we day-camped at Logan Park up on the lake and lost track of time. Figured this was the closest way home.”

The officer didn’t react, may not have believed him.

Mick’s dad asked the officer what was going on.

The guy didn’t say. Instead he asked for Mr. Fitzhugh’s license and registration. His partner, the other uniform, came over and peered in the passenger side and then walked to the back of the car, maybe, JJ thought, to copy the license plate number.

Mick’s dad asked if they were having trouble with an accident or a landslide.

The officer ignored the question. Just handed the papers back and told Mick’s dad to turn around. Said the road was closed.

Mick’s dad argued but it didn’t do any good.

He was muttering and irritable the rest of the trip. They had to go all the way to Kalispell and then down to home.

“People wonder why I hate the law,” he griped. After a while he said, “Must be about that girl.”

Mick’s dad grew increasingly angry, practically radiating. Scary. At the edge of town he looked at JJ in the mirror. “Know anything about this?” he asked.

JJ shot a look at Jon. The boy was just starting to wake up. He began kicking at her and she couldn’t keep him from blurting out what he thought he knew.

35

T
HE SHOT
M
ICK HEARD
in his dream was the front door slamming.

His dad threw the covers off him and kicked the foot of the cot.

“You nailed me to the goddamn wall!”

What wall? It was still dark. Middle of the night? Mick struggled to wake.

“Sit up, damn it! We’re talking!”

His father sounded as mad as he’d ever heard him and Mick had been through his mad plenty of times, drunk or high or sober. Mick couldn’t think what had set his dad off.

“Never lie to me! You don’t know what the hell you’re doing!”

Mick stood and watched his dad pace to the front door, look out, and come back.

“I hit a roadblock tonight and now we can’t run and we can’t stay.” He had come up on Mick, both hands fists, breathing like a locomotive.

Mick was still trying to catch up. What had happened? Dad took JJ and Jon for a drive to keep them from being questioned. Oh … he got it. “Salish River Road?”

“Damn straight, River Road. Sheriff’s blockade. Thought you found the body south of town. Under the highway bridge, you told me.”

“Yeah. Uh, yeah. That was our story. We didn’t want anybody to get in trouble.”

“Trouble! You didn’t tell me what I needed to stay
out
of trouble!” His saliva hit Mick in the face. “Screwed both of us. Don’t you learn anything?”

There was nothing Mick could say. His dad was right.

“They got my license, the car plate. If they’re any good they’ll backtrack us to McCall. They’ll search this place and the Conoco. They won’t find anything but I’ll still lose my job. Could get extradited. You could wind up on the spot for this floater. Numbered hell! Don’t you ever think?”

Mick thought plenty. He didn’t ask his dad to steal the generator off that highway construction in McCall. He didn’t ask him to sell it to some dickwad that turned him in. He didn’t ask his dad to pull bonehead stuff like that all over the western states for the last how many years, always a half step ahead of arrest. He didn’t ask him to spend his money on cars and drugs and beer. He didn’t ask him to live like a petty-crap outlaw and carry Mick around like a saddle blanket.

“Hey,” Mick said, his own anger rising, “I made a mistake! I didn’t—”

“You sure did, Bucky Boy, you sure did. Now maybe you can get up and help me and Gary figure out what to do next!” He stormed out, heading for the Stovalls’.

Mick pulled his jeans on and looked for a weapon. His father was about five ten, maybe a hundred and eighty, most of it muscle. Mick wasn’t going to let the man beat him again. Not for this. Not for anything anymore. His souvenir bat … no idea if he’d even brought it home from school for the summer. The putter? His dad wouldn’t feel it. Mick found a foot-long section of pipe, the cheater bar his dad used for leverage on stuck bolts. Mick put it on his bed within easy reach, covered it with a T-shirt.

Fitz rammed back in, still in a huff. Gary came behind, wearing sweatpants, his hair mashed to the side of his head. His father clattered a wooden chair for Gary beside Mick’s cot and pulled the cooler over for himself.

Gary was shaking his head. “Shit luck,” he said, to no one in particular.

Fitz started. “I can get my stuff out of the Conoco when it opens at seven. Hide it. Keep working like nothing’s happened. No way I can be connected to the girl. Mick, though, he’s got to get out of here and he can’t take the Bonnie.”

“Maybe the Chevy?” Gary offered.

“Fort Knox don’t have enough money to get that pile running.” Mick’s dad ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ll buy a cheap ride. Get Mick and your kids on the road.”

“We didn’t do anything, we just tried—”

“Shut up!” Fitz barked. “You did enough.”

“Me and Mick already been working on this,” Gary said. “He’ll take JJ and Jon, go visit Tina’s family in Spokane or mine in Boise. Out of here for a few weeks and back in time for school.”

Fitz shook his head. “The way this thing moves … could be next week, could be never.”

It sounded to Mick like he was getting divorced. He’d become a liability and his dad was cutting him loose.

“Well, I’m not giving away my kids,” Gary said, sitting a little straighter.

“Join ’em in a few months,” Fitz said.

“Hell, I got a business here,” Gary getting louder.

Fitz snorted.

“You’re scared, you go,” Gary said.

Mick’s dad brought a small pistol out from under his shirt. “You’re not giving me orders, pothead.”

Mick had seen his father like this once before with a guy he said was trying to stiff him.

“Whoa, whoa!” Mick was standing now. “Cool down. We’ll figure this out. Gary’s right. We were already working on it earlier tonight.”

His father towered over Gary. “I’m getting you a clean car by tonight. You two figure out who’s going where.” He turned and was out the door.

It was so quiet all of a sudden, Mick could hear the river.

36

M
ICK WOKE TO KNOCKING
. Morning sun hurt his eyes. Another knock shook the whole room. His first thought was Tim and his buddy. Going to finish what they started yesterday. He was up in his underwear looking for a weapon. Where had he put that cheater bar?

“Open up! Sheriff.”

Oh … his dad was going to kill him for sure.

He pulled on his jeans and opened the door to a stocky old man with a small dab of jelly in his mustache.

“Mickey Fitzhugh?” His voice sounded like a road grader.

“Yes, sir.”

“You make a phone call a couple of days ago? 911?”

What the hell?

“Booth at the river park east of town?”

Could somebody have seen me?

“Afternoon. About three?”

“No. Uh, no, sir. I might have been working. Hardware store.”

“You weren’t. Witness says a kid matching your description made a phone call from River Park. Right about the same time dispatch got a 911. From the same phone.”

“Huh. Well, there were some people just leaving the park when I pulled in.”

“Pulled in?”

Crap! Mick needed to wake up. “Earlier this week I was down there swimming. I don’t remember which day.”

“Who were you calling?” The man hitched his belt, but it still didn’t get up over his belly. He usually looked off to the side as if he were picturing what Mick was saying, but at the end of each question his eyes went up to Mick’s and held them.

“I don’t remember calling anybody.”

The sheriff sighed. “Son, based on the lies you’re telling me, I’m going to need fingerprints and a recording of your voice. May even need a tissue sample. Finish getting dressed and we’ll go to my office.”

“Sir, you can’t arrest me. I haven’t done anything. I have to go to work.”

“Look at me.” The man paused, letting it sink in. “You think I been doing this job long enough to know what I can and can’t do? I got something I’m working on a bit more important than your convenience.” He took his hat off and ran his hand over his hair like it was bothering him.

“I apologize. I didn’t mean any disrespect. Really I was just … begging. I can’t afford to lose my job. I, uh, I’m raising money for my cleats and uniform. Play ball for the Trappers this year.” Mick could feel sweat rolling out of his hair and down the back of his neck, and he knew the man could see it beading on his lip.

“Uh-huh. Well, I don’t mean any disrespect either. You’re lying to a law officer investigating a murder. How serious you think that is?”

“Uh, I know that’s really serious … I’m just scared. To be involved.”

“You want to quit lying and tell me about that call?”

“I thought she deserved to be found.” A part of Mick stood back watching, knowing he was going down the tubes, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think what else to do. Wasn’t talking to this guy better than talking to Cassel?

“I was swimming. I—”

“Alone?”

“Alone. I saw this thing across the river. I thought it was a log or something at first and then I realized it was a body. I ran. When I got back to town I called 911 because I didn’t want the animals to get her. I didn’t want her parents to keep worrying.”

“You knew her parents.”

“No. I hadn’t ever seen her before. Didn’t know her from nobody.”

“How come you’re lying about making the call?”

“I’m not! I did at first because I thought you’d think I did it.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I’m young and you’d have me … and you wouldn’t have to keep looking.”

“You don’t have a very high opinion of law enforcement.” The man made another try at his belt.

Mick didn’t say anything to that. He knew his dad had never been caught.

“That your vehicle out front?”

“Yes. My dad’s.”

“A Pontiac with that license number was stopped at a roadblock on River Road last night. Right where the body was found. Kind of a coincidence, huh?”

Mick knew the man could see him react. Mick didn’t think he grimaced but he could feel his skin flushing, hear his breathing getting louder. Worst of all, he couldn’t think what to say.

The sheriff waited Mick out.

“That might have been my dad. He took our neighbors for a drive last night. I don’t know where they went. Dad didn’t know where I saw the body. I never told him.”

“Never told him anything.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“When you were a kid did you tell your folks everything that happened when you borrowed their car and they didn’t know it?”

He considered that. “Give me your driver’s license,” he said.

“I don’t have one.”

The sheriff looked away and nodded. He hadn’t thought Mick did. He had Mick going and coming. Grace and Mick’s dad had both been right. Before this was over Mick could see that he might be charged with murder. Might wind up in prison if they found traces of him at the beach. Did he touch the body? He couldn’t remember.

37

M
ICK TOLD THE SHERIFF
that he had to go to work, that his dad worked in town, that they weren’t going anywhere, and that he’d come in after work and do a voice recording if the man still needed one.

The sheriff looked at Mick for a long time. Assessing.

Mick rubbed his hair back, trying for a little grooming. His T-shirt smelled like sweat, his jeans were grubby, and he looked like a bum. Could the man trust him? Mick had to admit he himself wouldn’t. But maybe Mick reminded the old man of somebody. Because he left.

Mick pulled on fresher clothes. He’d go to the Stovalls’, talk with Grace. Find out if she was still planning to get out of here like she’d said last night. Tell Gary about the sheriff. As he left the studio he saw Dovey watching him from her front porch. Mick stopped and walked to her.

“Looks like you’re starting to do a lot of business with the law.” She put her hands on her porch railing and leaned into a stretch.

“I made the 911 call on the dead girl,” Mick told her. She’d know soon enough anyway, and you had to give something to get something. “Who was that?” he asked, cutting his eyes toward the dirt road the sheriff had left on.

“Cardwell. Cardwell Paint. He’s the county sheriff. Office near mine. Good man. Lot to him.” She straightened and looked out to the river. “In some trouble?”

“Yeah. I told some lies and they bit me.”

“You hurt that girl?” Her eyes returned to Mick’s.

“No. Just found her. Never seen her before.”

“Beat to death,” she said. “Found her car halfway to Plains. Think she was probably killed there. Dumped up on the Salish.”

The Clark Fork River ran through the town of Portage, northwest all the way to Bonners Ferry in Idaho, and southeast through Missoula and beyond. The Salish River, the place where they’d gone swimming, ran north-south and poured into the Clark Fork just south of the town limits.