Helens-of-Troy (21 page)

He swaggered over to the stainless
steel toilet to take a whiz. He was glad there was no one else
around. The cell didn’t offer any privacy and he wasn’t looking
forward to the time he was going to have to take a shit. He hoped
it wouldn’t be when Betty was around.

He sat on the edge of the bed and
contemplated what he was going to say to her. There was no good way
he could tell her the events that happened earlier in the
evening.

“See Ma,” he practiced “I went there to
try and save the girl, but I got into a fight with this vampire—who
I could have taken any other night if I hadn’t wrecked my shoulder
during the game—and things just kind of got out of
hand.”

“I am so fucked,” he admitted,
realizing that wasn’t going to work. He stretched himself out on
the bed and watched some television. The freedom of being able to
change the channel whenever he wanted to was now a thing of the
past, and it was just one more thing making him
irritable.

Forty-five minutes later he heard the
police cruiser pull up on the gravel driveway next to the jail. It
was Chief Cohen who came into the building first. He stood in front
of Ryan and began to say something, then reconsidered. It was a
little late to try to knock some sense into the teen. They were
both probably too tired to listen to reason.

A few moments later, Officer Purdy led
Betty Lachey into the cell area. “Lucky for us, your mother says
you like toaster strudel. I got you four flavors. Take your pick.”
He offered the brown bag to Ryan, who shook his head
negatively.

“Prick,” Ryan wanted to say aloud, but
instead he looked sheepishly at Betty. She had been crying, he
knew, because her black mascara was running down her cheeks. Ryan
couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his mother cry. Now she
stood before him, looking at him in a bleary-eyed way, as if she
was sedated. Zombie sedated. Ryan chuckled nervously at that
thought. He was starting to sound like Stan.

“I didn’t do it, Ma” he finally blurted
out. That was all he could think of to say that made any sense. She
looked at him with a sullen look which told him that for her, this
was way too much to handle.

“What am I going to tell your brother?”
she whimpered. “He’s in the back of the police car scared out of
his wits. Getting dragged down to the police station at this hour
of the night. What were you thinking? He looks up to
you.”

“What did you bring him here for?” Ryan
asked.

“Because there was no one to leave him
with. Mr. Wagner’s dead. He won’t go to the LaRose’s. I couldn’t
just leave him alone. I thought there was a child killer on the
loose.” She looked forlornly at him and said softly “I didn’t know
it was you.”

Ryan felt like he had been stabbed in
the heart.

“Alleged child killer,” Purdy pointed
out. “Just so we’re all clear here.”

“Betty,” Roy Cohen said, giving Purdy a
look of disapproval, “to be fair, we haven’t gotten to the bottom
of the story yet. I have to tell you though; it’s not looking too
good.”

“What happened, Roy?” she asked
quietly, afraid to hear the answer.

He told her the events as they had
unfolded earlier at Stillman’s Creek, without telling her Ryan’s
version of the story.

“We’re waiting for Ryan here, to get
his facts straight before we take his statement. He seems a little
confused by the ordeal.”

Betty felt sick to her stomach. “You
have done some stupid things in your life, Ryan Lachey, but never
in a million years would I have thought you were capable of
something like this.”

“I’m not capable. I’m never capable,
except at football. You always tell me that. This isn’t any
different,” Ryan pleaded. “I just had a feeling I knew where she
was.”

“Shut-up until I can get you a good
lawyer,” Betty managed to whimper. “I’m going to have to mortgage
the house for this.”

“You might consider legal aid,” Purdy
offered. “Murder trials can drag on.”

Betty’s knees began to buckle. “I think
I need to sit down,” she said, grasping her chest with her right
hand.

“You need to see a doctor, Betty,”
Cohen said as comfortingly as he could. Her doctor was most likely
Dr. Quinlan, the dead girl’s father. That was now out of the
question.

“I’ll take her to the hospital,” Purdy
told Chief Cohen, as if reading his mind. “I’ll drop Stan off at my
house along the way. I’m sure Donna won’t mind looking after him
under the circumstances.”

“Thanks,” the Chief said, watching his
officer lead the emotion-wracked woman out the door. He turned to
his prisoner.

“You have left your mother speechless,”
Chief Cohen said sarcastically. “I’ve known her all her life, and I
can honestly say I have never seen that before.”

“What was I supposed to say?” Ryan
asked. “Was I supposed to tell her that Wacko-the-teenaged-vampire
did the nasty deed? Do you think that would have made her have more
faith in me?” He shook the cell bars angrily. “I am not a violent
person.”

The irony wasn’t wasted on the Chief.
“I can’t begin to help you if you don’t tell me the truth,” Cohen
sighed. Ryan’s version of the events leading up to having a dead
body in his arms hadn’t been the weirdest story Roy had heard in
all his years of policing, but it sure as hell came close. He hoped
that in the morning, Ryan would come to his senses.

“I’m sticking to my story,” Ryan
insisted.

“Unless you’re trying to cop an
insanity plea, I’d spend some time thinking about what really
happened, son.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything
until I get a lawyer,” Ryan argued. “That’s what’s really
happening.”

“You’re beginning to annoy the hell out
of me,” Cohen snapped. “Are you forgetting that when Officer Purdy
and I arrived at the scene, Wildman was standing with a rifle
pointed at your head? You’re lucky he was in a good mood and didn’t
blow your brains out. He’s not a friend of yours on your best day.
As it stands now, he’s a witness for the prosecution.”

“So?”

“So—I’d start thinking about the events
that led you to Stillman’s Creek tonight and come up with something
a jury will believe.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Ryan said, his
voice filled with rage. “I found her. I told you that. You know
Wildman has it in for me. He was pretty much calling me a pervert
in front of the whole town Saturday morning. He knows more than
he’s telling.”

“Are you saying Wildman somehow framed
you?” The Chief looked Ryan straight in the eyes. He was hoping
that Ryan was about to shed new light on the crime.

“No, I’m not saying that. I’m not a
liar. Well, maybe sometimes I stretch the truth around Tara, but
not about something like this.”

Cohen thought about that. In all the
years he had known the teenager, Ryan had been boorish,
intimidating and often stupid, but never much of a liar.

“Then why did you go there, Ryan? Can
you tell me that much? Were you planning to meet someone
else?

“Ellie had a dream,” Ryan said. “I told
Tara, and Tara sent her old man after me.”

“Slow down,” Roy demanded. “Why would
Tara send her dad after you? Were you planning to have a little
rendezvous with Tara out by the water? Was that why Wildman went to
the bridge?”

“How the hell should I know? Maybe he’s
stalking me. Go ask Ellie LaRose. Ask her about her
dream.”

It was disturbing to the Chief to know
that Helena LaRose’s granddaughter might also be involved in this.
She had been in town less than a week and already she was pinging
on his radar.

“What exactly did Ellie LaRose tell
you?” he asked.

“Just forget it,” Ryan said, putting
his head in his hands. “Right now, I’m pretty much wishing I had
never met Ellie LaRose. Or her mom.” He glanced at the Chief and
stopped short of adding Helena to the list. “Go ask Tom. Tom was
there.”

“At the creek?”

“No. When Ellie told me about the
dream. Tom was there then. I talked about it later, with Tara. Go
talk to them.”

“Why don’t you just tell me about this
dream?”

“Because you already don’t believe my
story. See if they back it up. I’m not trying to tell you how to do
your job or anything, but don’t you want some
collaboration?”

“You mean corroboration?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll be doing that,” the Chief assured
him. “It is a little suspicious that Ralph Wildman just happened
upon you when he did.”

Ryan looked hopefully at the Chief.
“So, you believe me?”

“No. You were right the first time. I
don’t believe your cockamamie story. But,” he hesitated, “I’ve
arrested hundreds of criminals, and a few murderers in my time, and
I have to say that something is off. I’m not sure you did it. If
you took some LSD—blue tabs or four-ways or whatever else you want
to call it—before you found her, now would be a good time to tell
me. It would somewhat explain your story.”

“My scholarship is on the line,” Ryan
replied, “I’ve got a physical coming up and I’m subject to random
drug testing. I never did mushrooms. I don’t do crack. I’m not
going to blow my pro ball career for a few hours of induced
happiness. I want to make the pros and get out of this hellhole
town. Things happened just like I said they did,” he insisted. “I
maybe had a couple of beers before I had the argument with Tara. I
got them from Betty’s fridge, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t
tell her about it, because I’ve got other problems right
now.”

Roy had known that. He could smell it
on Ryan’s breath when he arrested him. But he hadn’t appeared to
have been drunk. Just under-aged. The lesser of the alleged
crimes.

“That’s why I’m also not sure you
didn’t do it,” Cohen sighed. “The one thing I am sure of, is that
the only place you’re safe is here behind bars. Because by morning,
once the news starts to spread, half the town is going to want you
dead. You’re not just a murderer in their eyes, you’re a child
killer. So think about that for a while, and then decide if you
want to remember what actually happened.”

The Chief’s cell phone went off, and he
immediately pulled it from its belt holder.

“You should download a ring-tone like
the theme song from Hawaii Five-O,” Ryan commented.
“Da-da-da-da-da-dah-, da-da-da-da-dah..., he sang. “What? I have
the Ventures version on vinyl. They weren’t big on
words.”

“Troy Police. Cohen here,” he said,
ignoring him.

The voice on the other end of the line
was talking in such an animated tone that Ryan almost overheard the
Chief’s conversation.

Cohen realized this and turned his back
on him. “Calm down, Tara.”

Ryan, hearing Tara’s name, tried to
listen more closely, but the Chief was already walking towards the
door. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.” He turned to Ryan. “Stay
put. I don’t know what’s going on in this town. But you’d better be
here when I get back.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do
anything else?” Ryan asked, perplexed. “I’m locked behind bars.” He
shook his head. Had the whole town gone insane?

He heard the Chief start the car and
turn on the siren.

“Dude’s in a hurry,” Ryan thought to
himself. He could see the cruiser lights began to flash through the
station window, drawing his attention to an outside world that at
least for the moment, he was no longer a part of.

A dark form moved stealthily past the
window. The sight of it forced an uncontrollable shudder down
Ryan’s spine.

“Not you again. Come in here, you
fucker,” Ryan yelled. “Let me finish you off.”

As soon the words had left Ryan’s
mouth, he felt the room grow cold. A mouse that had been eyeing the
strudel bag on Purdy’s desk aborted the mission and made a quick
dash back into the safety of a hole in the baseboard.

“Bright lights, say goodnight,” the
voice said, as the jail lights were dimmed, and the television
turned itself off. “Haven’t you heard? Too much TV rots your
brain.”

“What the hell?” Ryan asked, turning
around to see the teenaged vampire standing before him once
again.

He held the remote control in his
pasty-white hand. “I’m super-dead, not super-human,” he shrugged,
tossing the remote out of Ryan’s reach. “Thanks for inviting me in.
I like what you’ve done with the space.”

“How about I stuff something in your
mouth?” Ryan taunted, throwing a right hook in the vampire’s
direction.

The night creature spun around on his
heels and blocked Ryan’s fist, following through with a left upper
cut to Ryan’s cheek, which left the football player momentarily
stunned and bleeding profusely.

“Aw, shoulder still hurting you? Isn’t
that the excuse you’re using?” his adversary mocked.

“Fuck,” Ryan cried out, his hand going
to his face to move the flow of blood away from his mouth. He
cowered as the vampire moved towards him, running his icy finger
under Ryan’s chin to collect the run-off of fresh blood as it
trickled down his profile. “What do you want with me?”