Best Friends Forever (24 page)

Figure out who his friends are, where he might be crashing. Both of you, bring a picture of the belt. Maybe one of them’l recognize it.” He gave Eric Ramos to Devin and got Kevin Oliphant’s information from the computer. An assault charge, a bunch of DUIs and bar fights, pushing a lady, hitting a little kid. That sounded to him like a guy who could end his high school reunion minus his belt and some blood. THIRTY

Kevin Oliphant lived in a crappy apartment in a subdivided three-story vinyl-sided house behind the Discount Food-mart on the very edge of Pleasant Ridge. Jordan checked the name on the mailbox and located unit 1-C at the end of a dark hal way that smel ed like garlic and wet wood. He banged on the flimsy wooden door and cal ed “Police!” and eventual y, Oliphant exited, chest-first. The chest in question was bare, covered by a few sparse, dark curls. Oliphant’s bel y was slack and white, bulging above a pair of brown sweatpants. His bare feet were pale and surprisingly dainty, and he smel ed not unlike the homeless men hanging around Jonathan Downs’s bus stop: same signature scent of eau de Pabst and puke.

“Yeah?” he grunted, blinking at Jordan’s face.

“You weren’t answering your phone,”

Jordan said.

“Is that against the law?” He belched. Delightful fel ow.

“Were you at the reunion last night?”

“So what if I was?”

“We found some stuff in the parking lot. You missing anything?”

Kevin Oliphant scratched his head. “If you’ve got papers, just go ahead and serve me.”

“Why would you think I’m here to serve you?”

Kevin cleared his throat, a wet, rumbling sound. “Fuck do you care?” It happened in an instant. One second Jordan was standing six feet away from Kevin Oliphant, and the next he had the man backed up against the rattling living room wal of the shitbox apartment that smel ed like fried food and stale farts.

“How about you answer my questions?”

Kevin struggled, wild-eyed. Jordan shook him. “If I run your name,” Jordan rasped,

“what’l I find? Couple of restraining orders? Parking tickets? Your child support al paid up, Kevin?” He shook him hard enough to make his head bounce on his neck, but Kevin said nothing. “Belt,” Jordan said, letting him loose.

The other man stared at him. “Huh?”

“Show me the belt you wore last night,”

Jordan said.

Kevin stared at him for a moment, then skulked down the shitbox’s hal way. A minute later, he came out with a black leather belt in his hands. “Okay? Are we cool?”

“We are not.” Jordan peered around the apartment. The living room had scratchy gray wal -to-wal carpeting, a single stained recliner,

and

a

stack

of

yel owed

newspapers beside it. There was a pair of crumpled pizza boxes in the corner, and a thirty-gal on garbage can overflowing with empty beer cans and Popov vodka bottles beside it.

Kevin Oliphant fol owed Jordan’s gaze.

“What?” he asked. “I recycle.”

Jordan walked down the hal . The grimy kitchen’s sink was piled high with dirty dishes, the counter crammed with Chinese take-out containers and an eight-pack of paper towel rol s (from the look of it, Oliphant used paper towels as plates, napkins, and probably toilet paper, too). The bathroom was exactly what Jordan expected, the toilet seat up, the floor in front of it showered in piss droplets, a scroungy blue rug in front of the tub, which looked like it hadn’t seen a sponge or a scrub brush in months, if ever. There was a coat closet off the hal way, empty except for a winter coat on a wire hanger, and some dirty T-shirts kicked into a pile.

The bedroom closet was a tumbled mess of clothing. The bed was a mattress on the floor. It would have been depressing even if it didn’t remind Jordan of his own place, which was cleaner and marginal y better furnished but, for al that, stil the place of a man who lived alone, a man who’d had a woman once, then fucked it al up.

Kevin trailed behind him as Jordan made his way through the apartment. “What are you doing? Hey, don’t you need a warrant?”

Jordan stopped in the living room and glared at the guy. There was a pair of photographs in cheap wooden frames perched on top of the television set. Two kids, a little boy and a baby, wearing swimsuits (the baby’s swimsuit bottom was swol en with diapers underneath), and just the thought that this foulmouthed, shitboxdwel ing, kid-hitting asshole had children, and that Jordan didn’t and probably never would, was enough to make him want to grab Oliphant and shake him so hard that he’d need a construction-paper chart to remind him to wipe his ass after he took a dump. “Where’s the basement?”

Kevin’s mouth hung open. He shut it in a sneer. “Why? You think I’m hiding something down there?”

“Are you?” Jordan asked.

“Are you shitting me? I don’t even have a basement.”

“Storage unit?”

Oliphant worked at one of his back teeth with his tongue. “They wanted thirty bucks a month extra.”

“Show me.”

Oliphant shrugged and led Jordan to a door next to the laundry room. The door led down a flight of wobbly wooden stairs that led to a coin-op washer and dryer and a half-dozen chicken-wire cubicles packed with people’s stuff: rol s of Christmas wrapping paper, tricycles and baby swings, cardboard boxes ful of old clothes and books, mildewed plastic lawn chairs, bundled magazines tied with twine. Jordan pul ed out his flashlight and looked around, shining the light into each cubicle as Kevin stood, shivering and barefoot, at the top of the stairs.

“Where’s your car?” Jordan knew that Oliphant had one, or that at least there was a ten-year-old Ford Explorer registered in his name.

“Out front.” Kevin cocked a thumb. Jordan walked outside, looked the vehicle over, and saw a number of crushed coffee cups and empty soda bottles strewn around the front seat, but no blood, no dents, no body. He marched back inside. Kevin Oliphant had pul ed on a Tshirt reading CERTIFIED PUSSY INSPECTOR and a pair of grayish socks. His big toe poked through a hole in the right one. This guy just got better and better. “Who were you with last night?”

Jordan asked.

“Chip Mason. We went to our high school reunion together.”

“Just the two of you?”

“And Dan Swansea.”

“What time did you get to the country club?”

“Around ten.”

“Who’d you talk to?”

“My buddies.”

“They have names?”

“Phil Tressler. Russ Henderson. Jamie Wertz. We played footbal .” Kevin flexed his shoulders. “Won the conference junior year.

”

“Congratulations. You leave by yourself?”

“Chip took me home. Dan said for us to go ahead. He was talking to a bunch of girls.

Probably figured he’d get a ride with one of them, if you know what I mean.” He leered.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Probably hooked up.”

“Hooked up with who?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Kara Tait, maybe. She was always a good time.”

“Did you see Jonathan Downs last night?”

“Jonathan Downs?” Confusion flickered across Kevin’s face. “No way. No way he’d show up. Not him or his fat freak of a sister.”

“You know Adelaide Downs?”

“Know her?” Kevin’s voice acquired a nasty edge. “That bitch ruined our senior year.”

“What are you talking about?”

Kevin squinted at Jordan mistrustful y.

“You know what? I don’t have to tel you shit.” He lifted his chin and then, with more dignity than a man wearing a PUSSY

INSPECTOR T-shirt should have been able to muster, said, “I think you should leave now,” and pointed at the door.

THIRTY-ONE

Kevin Oliphant didn’t have to tel him shit. But Christie Keogh was more than happy to oblige.

She met him at the door, face drawn and worried, with her son and daughter huddled behind her. Jordan crouched down, smiling. He thought he remembered hearing that it was important to get down to kids’

level when addressing them, but once he’d gotten in position, he thought maybe that was dogs. The little girl shrank back with her hands over her eyes, peeking at him from between her slitted fingers. The boy, who appeared to be seven or eight, looked him up and down.

“Are you a policeman?” he asked. “Do you have a gun? Can I hold it?”

“Oh, God,” Christie murmured. She hustled the kids into the family room, put a program on the TV ( Jordan was relieved it wasn’t The Nighty-Night Show), and walked him back to the kitchen.

This time she was barefoot, with Styrofoam toe-spreaders on her feet. She’d changed out of her workout wear and was dressed for the day in dark jeans and a gray cardigan with a silver zipper she kept tugging as she explained what Addie Downs had done to ruin Kevin Oliphant’s life. “It was when we were seniors,” she began. “Right after homecoming, there was a party at this guy Pete Preston’s house. He was the quarterback on the footbal team.” She looked up, stealing a glance at Jordan’s face. “Anyhow. Valerie Adler hooked up with Dan Swansea, and they went off into the woods, and…” She peeked at the TV room, making sure the door was shut. “They had sex, I guess. I wasn’t there. This is just what I heard.” She pul ed the zipper up, then down.

“Anyhow. Addie and Val were best friends. They lived on the same street. They’d been best friends forever. They were both at the party, and what happened was, Addie told her parents that Dan had raped Valerie. Addie’s parents—her mom, I think—told the guidance counselor at school. But Val said that nothing had happened. She told the guidance counselor nothing happened

—that it had been, you know, consensual

—and she told her friends that Addie was jealous. That Addie had been the one with the crush on Dan and that she didn’t like it when Dan hooked up with Valerie. And the boys…”

She dropped her eyes. “People were pretty hard on Addie until we graduated.”

“How do you mean?”

She tugged her zipper, looking unhappy.

“Wel . Addie had never been real y popular anyhow—she’d been heavy and Val was real y her only friend. After the party, after what happened, they weren’t friends anymore, and everyone at school…” She paused. “Dan and his friends kind of ganged up on Addie. People would say stuff. They’d cal her a narc or trip her in the hal s. Write stuff about her in the girls’

room. High school stuff. Her locker was vandalized a few times, and some of those boys got in trouble for painting things on her driveway.”

“What things?”

Christie shrugged, with her eyes trained on her immaculate kitchen floor. “Nasty things. I don’t real y know. They got arrested

—Dan and Kevin Oliphant, Russ Henderson and Terry Zdrocki. They got suspended from school for three days, and they couldn’t go to graduation.”

Jordan considered this. “Were any of them at the reunion last night?”

The zipper went up, the zipper came down. “Terry died in an accident after graduation. I think he climbed on top of a trol ey—he was drunk—and he tried to grab the wires. He was electrocuted.” She swal owed. “The rest of them were there.”

“We’ve been able to locate almost every man from the party except for Dan Swansea,”

Jordan said.

Christie looked up at him. “You think something happened to Dan?”

“We don’t think anything yet, ma’am. We’d just like to find Mr. Swansea. Do you know who he left the party with?”

Eyes wide, Christie shook her head.

“Okay. Let’s back up. What time did Mr. Swansea arrive?”

“I’m real y not sure. I think he came with Chip Mason, and I remember seeing him at the bar with his friends, but I don’t know when he came.”

“Which friends?” Jordan asked.

“The footbal guys. Russ and Kevin Oliphant…” Her face went into a brief spasm of dis-taste. “He let himself go. Big-time.”

“Did Mr. Swansea talk to anybody? Dance with anyone?”

She tapped her fingers against the countertop. “Different girls.”

“Which girls?” asked Jordan.

More tapping. “I was running around a lot last night, so I can’t real y swear to any of this.

Kara Tait, I think. Um. Lisa Schecter. That’s her maiden name, I’m not sure what her married name is. She hyphenated. Oh, and I thought I saw him talking to Valerie.”

She raised her shoulders in a shrug. “So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe everything’s fine with the two of them. Val’s a meteorologist now. She’s on TV.”

“On TV,” Jordan repeated as his cel phone started buzzing. He excused himself, stepped into the foyer, and lifted the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

“Chief? You told me to cal you if we got any 10–57s,” said Paula. She paused.

“Missing person reports.”

“Right. Did someone cal one in?”

“Yes,” said Paula. Jordan braced himself for the words “Daniel Swansea,” but Paula said,

“It’s Adelaide Downs. Her next-door neighbor’s reported her missing.”

Jordan pul ed his coat out of the closet where Christie had hung it, pointed at the door, then waved at her before tel ing Paula,

“I’m on my way.”

THIRTY-TWO

By the time Jordan rol ed up to Crescent Drive, it was just after six and already dark. The sky was dotted with stars; a brisk wind rattled the tree branches as Addie’s nextdoor neighbor, Cecilia Bass, came thumping down her front steps to meet him. She was an aged party with a wrinkled neck, a hawklike profile, and stringy gray hair pul ed into a knot at the nape of her neck. She frowned at his badge, her bony, veined hands protruding from the cuffs of her floorlength down coat. Her legs were bare, traced with bulgy blue veins. Her feet were jammed into fur-lined boots, and she had a four-pronged metal cane in one hand.

“I understand there’s a problem?” Jordan said once she’d handed his badge back.

“My neighbor is missing.” Mrs. Bass raised her cane and swung it toward Addie’s darkened house, narrowly missing Jordan’s nose. “Adelaide Downs of Fourteen Crescent Drive.”

“For how long?”

“Since four o’clock this afternoon. Perhaps earlier. Four o’clock was when I cal ed and got no answer on either her home phone or her cel .” Mrs. Bass swung open her door and led Jordan into a warm, cluttered, book-lined living room that looked oddly familiar. It took him a minute to place it, but final y, he realized that he’d seen the room—the red-and-white