Tunnel Vision (11 page)

“He did, on numerous occasions, but if there really was one, it was never recovered,” said Van Endel. “It drove Phil about nuts. They tore that house apart looking for it, but came away with nothing. That diary was either more BS from Duke, or it got swiped or tossed in the trash before Mandy was killed.” Van Endel shrugged.

“I was really hoping that part might have been true,” said Betty wistfully, and Van Endel nodded.

“That would have been a heck of a thing to look through. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been a smoking gun pointed at Duke or anyone else, but it might have made some of this conspiracy crap go away.”

“It could have given that conspiracy crap a boost, too, right?”

“That’s true,” said Van Endel. “I suppose in that regard there would have been a hell of an incentive for Phil to destroy it. Here’s the problem though: Phil wasn’t that kind of cop.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he didn’t have some vendetta against Duke or anyone else. There was no reason for him to have had one, and he just wouldn’t have, in any case. Phil just wanted to catch the bad guy, not railroad some junkie.” Van Endel drew in a breath, and by the time he let it out, his warm half smile was there. “You know those baby toys with the different-shaped holes, and the different-shaped pieces you’re supposed to put in them?”

“Of course,” said Betty.

“Being a cop and trying to fit a man for a crime is a lot like one of those,” he explained. “There might be a time or two where a square peg gets shoved into a circular hole, like we’re questioning the wrong guy, but part of being a good cop is realizing when that’s happening.

“Duke Barnes is in jail because he fit that crime perfectly. If he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, then he sure did a good job of getting himself there.” Van Endel paused and spun his head as the door to the basement opened and Ophelia walked through it.

“Detective Van Endel, what a pleasure to see you,” said Ophelia, and then Betty watched as her mother hugged the cop, the sight of it bizarre in ways that she’d never experienced.
I get that Andrea knows him, but since when did she bring that part of her work home?

TWENTY-THREE

The time after Van Endel left the house passed uneventfully. Betty’s scribbled notes on the pad of paper felt like little threads of a far greater failure, and even looking at the Free Duke site felt a little silly now, childish even. If everything Van Endel had said was true, then there was no way Duke was going to be freed, no matter how many famous friends he might make. The site had described Duke as a hard man whose hard history had gotten him framed for a crime he didn’t commit, but when Van Endel spoke of Duke, he didn’t sound like he thought the prisoner was a dangerous man, just a pathetic one.

The only other useful thing to come out of the day had been the conversation with Nickel and his oddly helpful tips. Sure, the detective had cast doubt on all of them, but everything the boy in the park had mentioned at least had some bearing on reality. Betty believed the cop on all fronts, but unlike some of the things the detective had disproven outright, all the stuff Nickel had mentioned remained in the maybe-possible column.

The thought came to Betty with such finality that her mouth dropped open. She and June had tossed it out as a pie-in-the-sky possibility the other day, but the conversation with Van Endel had proven it to be a stone-cold necessity: she was going to need to convince the moms to let her go with June to Jackson to speak with Duke. He was the only one that would be able to answer their questions.

Not to mention, traveling across the state to speak to a man convicted of murder would be a serious boost to the project. Even if they ultimately failed in deciding Duke’s innocence or guilt conclusively, she would still be able to say they had done everything they could in order to find out what had really happened to Mandy Reasoner.

Easy to say, but she knew there were going to be a lot of hoops to jump through. Betty had no idea how one could even go about setting up a meeting with a prisoner they didn’t even know. And even if she did convince the moms to let her and Duke said he would meet her, there was still the matter of getting him to actually talk in front of Andrea, who would certainly insist upon coming along.

Even worse, if I ask her and she says no, then there’s no way I’ll be able to go. Maybe June will have some ideas.

This last thought set Betty’s face to fire. She hadn’t talked to June since the stupid fight at school. She hadn’t even responded to her texts yet. She needed to make things right with June—this was
her
project, too. Hell, it had more to do with June than it did her. Mandy was her aunt, after all. And now Betty had so much to share with her. She needed to tell her about the meeting with Van Endel, about the house, and especially about the odd boy in the park.

Betty grabbed her phone from the desk and punched in a text to June that said, “Sorry 4 freaking out & being a bitch. Love you, and I need to tell you about today and ask you a couple of questions tomorrow. Still besties?”

Betty had only set the phone down on her desk maybe thirty seconds ago when it began to buzz.

“NO PROB! Sory I wuz so mean, totes just joking around but it went too far. Cant wait 2 c u 2 morrow so we can talk about it.”

It was nice to have a person in her life she could fuck up with so totally and still call a friend.

The text conversation did remind her of Jake, though. Between everything else that had happened she’d nearly forgotten about her steady and his absolutely ridiculous request, and recalling it now made her feel nauseous. Being fodder for hallway mockery seemed far less a big deal to her now than it had earlier, but the idea of shattering a boy who obviously cared about her seriously made her feel like she might empty her stomach. Even worse was the fresh memory of walking through the hall and feeling like such hell because she was about to get dumped. Now it turned out he cared a lot more for her than she did for him, and she was going to have to turn around and put him through the same thing.

As Betty leaned back in her chair and let out a deep breath, Andrea called up the stairs that dinner was ready. Betty left the room determined to leave thoughts of Jake and Duke Barnes behind. There would be plenty of time for both of them soon enough, but right now she just wanted to be a teenager.

As she clomped down the stairs, Andrea shouted, “Hurry up, I want to hear about you and Dick.”

Both Betty and Ophelia burst out in juvenile laughter at that, and as she walked into the room to see the moms giggling at one another, it struck Betty just how lucky she was to be a part of this little family.

TWENTY-FOUR

Our conversation the day before must have jarred something loose for the both of us. I spent the night reeducating myself on the Reasoner case, and now that we’re together again at the park, it’s obvious that Claire’s been doing her own work. The first words out of her mouth are, “I want you to look into Jack.”

“Excuse me?”

“My ex-husband. I want you to look into Jack as well.”

“Yesterday, you said that—”

“I know what I said, you don’t need to remind me. I changed my mind. If he had anything to do with that . . . thing, I need to know about it, for June’s safety and my own sanity.”

I nod, still trying to take it all in. Then things start to make more sense. The liquor on her breath and the unexpected change of heart are both fairly indicative that our conversation yesterday hit her far harder than I imagined.

“I’ll need to do research more than just on him,” I say. “I’ll need to read about all the nuances of the Reasoner case all over again, but I need to remind you, I was in his house. There was nothing there.”

“You think I’m crazy?”

“No, not at all.” I’m trying to keep my tone neutral, but drunk divorc
é
es that hire teenage investigators don’t exactly strike me as the most balanced social demographic. “I do think, however, that I planted an idea in your head. I also think that if you really believed this idea, you and June would have skipped town for parts unknown a long time ago.”

“I just want you to look into it,” says Claire. “The other man is still locked up, and this is just an insurance plan.”

“Is there anyone else it could have been? Anyone else that knew Mandy that the police looked into?”

“How should I know?” Claire asks, not even trying to hide her disgust. “The police never came around asking us any questions. They had their man, and that was good enough for me.”

“So why do you want me to look into Jack now?”

“You’ve seen my daughter. Can you imagine what that would be like for him if he had done it, to see the girl he murdered whenever he looked at his own daughter?”

The rest of the conversation is just a lot of smiling and nodding on my end and ranting on hers. I want to tell her that I need to go, that people are almost certainly noticing our little meeting, but I’m forced to just let the storm die out on its own. By the time Claire is done yelling and back in her car, I’ve missed a couple of pages, both from the same number. Frowning, I grab my burner and dial the number, and the quick answer is telling. History has taught me that you know you have a drug dealer’s attention when he answers on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, man, you paged me. Sorry about the wait.”

“And who the hell is this?”

I sigh. I have a strict code, no names on the phone. But Paul doesn’t care about codes, he only cares about proving to whoever’s listening that he’s in the power position. And it’s been way too long since I’ve moved weed, so I’m ready to compromise.

“It’s Nickel, man. I wanted to get together and talk about that thing.”

“Yeah, I know that,
man,
” says Paul, more bravado to back up the fact that the man has no backbone unless there’s a heater in his pants and a friend or two to impress. I know the setup already: Paul in front of a room full of class clowns turned criminals, all having a joke at my expense. I can practically smell the reefer and hear Madden through the phone.

“So can we get together soon?” I ask, hating myself for having to put up with this nonsense. I can’t believe I’m in this position. Not that it was my greed that put me here—it was all Gary’s, and it’s Gary’s mistake I’m paying double for.

Of course, Gary did get a worse end of the deal than I did. Eventually.

“Are you still holding enough to make this worth my while?” Paul asks.

“Yeah, I am, and I’m willing to work on the price. The sooner I get off of this, the better.”

There’s silence on the other end of the phone, I’m guessing for either a video game break or a bong rip, and then Paul is back. “All right, that’s good, that’s good. I want to hook up soon, see if this smoke is as good as you say it is—”

“It’s the same batch I gave you a bag of a few months ago,” I blurt out. Any possibility that he doesn’t think I’m desperate is gone now, and I wince, knowing I’m letting Dad down. I know what Dad would do with Paul and his friends, and it wouldn’t be broker a deal. This is the corner I’m in, though.

“Yeah, I know that, Nickel,” says Paul, all annoyed disdain. “I just want to get another bag, because as you said, it’s been a few months. You want to move quantity, and I want to make sure I don’t get stuck with a bunch of downtown brown, or a bunch of fire-damaged green.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that,” I tell him, “and you know I don’t know anything about that fire.”

He just laughs at that, then gets serious again. “No, I don’t know you wouldn’t fuck with me, because we’re not friends.” That is sure as hell true. He’s a connection, and not even a good one. That’s the blessing and the curse of doing business in a city the size of Grand Rapids. It’s hard to get caught up with some syndicate moving Peruvian bricks, but it’s also hard to find a real operator and not a bullshitting weekend warrior. Paul is an unreliable wannabe gangster who smokes way too much of his own supply to ever be useful for much more than a few quick bucks, but he’s all I have at the moment. “If we were friends,” he goes on, “you’d be here right now, and we wouldn’t be fighting over pennies.”

“Paul, this isn’t pennies.” I know that he knows the rest, but feel like he needs a little reminder that we aren’t squabbling over an eighth of an ounce. “I have over fifteen pounds, all processed and ready to go as soon as we can both get happy on a number. That’s a lot of good green, and this is good green.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he says, after a lengthy pause that’s probably the result of him trying to remember if he’s running offense or defense on the flat screen in front of him. “You can guarantee that, man: I will be the judge of just how much money this shit weed is worth. Where did you say you got it again?”

“I’ve got a knack for sniffing stuff out,” I lie. “It just comes to me.” Which is sort of true, though not with weed. I actually do have a talent for sniffing out monsters, and usually they do just come to me. That’s where the scar under my eye came from, an angry man holding a .45 who hadn’t realized he was about to go 120 miles straight to hell. As for pot—well, I just grow that. And I don’t need Paul knowing where I stay or wanting to figure it out. Oh well, that’s why they make burner cell phones, so that I can lose a number when I have to.

“Yeah, you better be able to sniff it out,” says Paul. “If I find out this was stolen from some downtown dopeboy I’m going to be very pissed off. The absolute last thing I need is to do you a favor and have you sell me some shit that already has an owner. Get it?” I did, and told him as much, and then Paul said, “Give me a day or two. I’ll call, you’ll get back to me—immediately this time—and I’ll get you a spot to meet me.”

The line goes dead and I lay the phone down on my desk. Yes, I need the money, so yes, I need to work with Paul. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

TWENTY-FIVE

“Was the cop cute?” June asked with a dopy-looking smile.

Betty frowned. “No—I mean, he wasn’t ugly or anything, but he was old, probably as old as the moms, but men carry it differently.”

“Old guys can be cute, too,” said June, and that remark sent both of them into librarian shush-worthy titters, an affliction they managed to rein in before any actual punishment could be levied on them for daring to be amused in the temple of stacked books. “I am serious, though,” said June as she wiped tears from under her eyes. “George Clooney is cute, Harrison Ford is cute, Tom Cruise is cute—”

“Those are movie stars. Of course they look good. Real-life old guys are gross. There’s a big difference.”

“I still don’t get why you can’t just ask the moms to drive with us to Jackson,” said June. “I’d ask my parents, but there’s no way they’d let me. I haven’t talked to my dad in like a month, and if my mom even considered the idea that I knew about her sister she’d lose her shit, guaranteed.”

“Shit,” said Betty. “That’s us stuck in the mud then. No way will the moms be up for it, and we’re not eighteen so we need a guardian to go with us. Maybe it’s just not meant to be. Besides, we don’t know if Duke would talk to us even if we could get in to see him.”

“He would, if we could get in,” said June. “I’m sure of it. I mean, that’s the whole point of what he’s trying to do, drum up as many supporters as he can to help him get out. The problem is going to be getting into prison, but maybe we can figure something out.”

“Well, I’m going to see if there’s some sort of online form we need to fill out so we can see him. I’ll just need to fudge our birthdays a bit.”

“I suppose it can’t be that hard,” said June. “I mean, you hear about people breaking out of prison, why can’t we break in?”

“Because I don’t want to get shot?” Betty replied. “I can’t think of a single adult that would even consider helping us out with this, June. Pointless though it is, I just need to bite the bullet and ask the moms. If we’re already not going to be able to go, I may as well just ask. It’s not like there are any other real options.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” admitted June. “This sucks, but it’s weird, too. I never even knew I had an aunt, and now I’m bummed because I can’t go meet the guy that probably killed her? What sort of fucked-up sense does that make?”

“It’s not like you want to see him because you’re some weirdo,” said Betty. “We’re trying to get a good grade in a really hard class, but more importantly, we’re looking for answers. Do you have any idea how crazy it would be if we were the ones to figure this out?”

“It would be pretty cool to get some real justice for Mandy,” said June. “I just don’t think we can do that without talking to Duke.”

“Then we’ll figure something out,” said Betty. “I don’t know what, and I don’t know how, but we’ll figure it out.” Betty didn’t feel nearly as convinced as she was trying to sound, and she could tell her friend felt the same way.
Everything was going well until Van Endel made it sound like everyone already knows the truth. But if we can find some way to talk to Duke, then I can get us back on track.

“Five minutes to the bell,” said June. “That means we need to get back to Mr. Evans’s class, and we never even talked about what we needed to do next.”

“I’ll do some research on the prison, and then I’ll ask the moms,” said Betty. “I guess we just cross our fingers and hope for the best.”

The girls walked through the mostly empty corridors of Northview High School silently. Betty didn’t know if they’d talked themselves out in the library, or if the subject matter had simply gotten too depressing to bear any further discussion. As they approached Mr. Evans’s classroom, the bell signaling the end of the period rang out, and students began to fill the halls. Betty and June walked into the classroom as students flooded out of it, and Mr. Evans nodded as they came in.

“Ladies,” said Mr. Evans. “How goes our research?”

“Good so far,” said June, speaking the half truth for both of them, still preferable to telling their teacher that the path was beginning to look harder to traverse.

“Great,” said Mr. Evans. “June, you may get on out of here, but Ms. Martinez, you and I need to have a quick word.”

“OK,” said Betty, trying to find confidence but unsure of why she was being singled out. She watched June leave and Mr. Evans close the door after her. He waited to speak until he’d walked back to his desk and sat across from where she stood, waiting for him.

“You cut my class yesterday.”

“I’m sorry,” said Betty. “It’s a really long, stupid, and embarrassing story, and it won’t happen again, I prom—”

“You’re right,” said Mr. Evans. “It won’t. Forcing me to cover up your actions because you decide to just rush off isn’t going to work again. June didn’t tell me what the problem was, and I’m not sure I want to know, but I do hope that this was a one-time thing. Next time I’ll call your parents myself, and to boot, I will give both of you a failing grade.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Evans. It won’t happen again.”

“I hope not. You have a good future ahead of you and there’s no reason to let youthful stupidity screw it all up.” Mr. Evans cocked his head and said, “Everything will be fine, Betty, just so long as you remember that high school is the start of your life, not the part that will define it. Does that make sense?”

“I guess so,” said Betty. “Thanks, Mr. Evans.”

“Thank me by not cutting any more class.”