Blur (Blur Trilogy) (11 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

The sheriff’s department was located next to the courthouse on Main Street.

The count
y
didn’t have enough extra mone
y
l
yi
ng around to hire a full-time officer to sit in the lobb
y
checking the handful of visitors who entered throughout the da
y,
so there wasn’t an
y
securit
y
person posted at the entrance.

Instead, a part-time receptionist a couple
ye
ars older than Daniel sat behind the counter. He’d met her before: Shawna. She was chewing a colossal glob of gum, busil
y
texting someone.

She glanced absentl
y
at him as he entered, finished blowing a bubble that splattered across her chin when it popped, then said, “Here to see
yo
ur dad?”

“Is he in?”

She nodded toward the hall. “Doing some paperwork.” Her attention had alread
y
shifted back to her phone, texting with one hand while salvaging as much gum as possible for another bubble with the other.

When Daniel reached the end of the hall he found the door ajar.

His dad’s office was nondescript, with a couple of chairs and a sprawling gra
y
metal desk that’d been there as long as Daniel could remember. Papers la
y
strewn across it, with an intimidating pile of files waiting in the in-box. A shelf packed with polic
y
manuals stood between the window and the locked gun case.

Gun culture in Wisconsin is different from a lot of areas in the U.S. Here, especiall
y
in this part of the state, it’s expected that
yo
u own a gun, that
yo
u hunt, that
yo
u have firearms on hand and readil
y
available to protect
yo
ur famil
y,
or, in this case, the communit
y
at large. It wasn’t a big enough department to have an extensive gun vault, so his dad stored the assortment of rifles and shotguns right there in his office.

Daniel gave the door a slight knock, entered. “He
y,
Dad.”

He looked up from his work. “Dan. How’s it going?”

“Good.” He took a seat in the stiff chair facing his father’s desk.

Gesturing toward Daniel’s drenched clothes, his dad said, “Got caught in the rain, huh?”

“Yeah. Out b
y
the lake.”

“The lake?”

“Lake Algonquin.”

He looked at Daniel curiousl
y.
“Reall
y?
”

“Yes.”

Daniel sorted through how to explain what was on his mind. “Listen, I need to talk to
yo
u.”

“Sure.”

Just tell him. See what he sa
ys
.

“Actuall
y,
it’s about Emil
y
Jackson.”

“Oka
y.
”

“I . . . um . . . I think she might not have died b
y
accident.”

“What are
yo
u talking about?”

“I think ma
yb
e she was murdered.”

His dad put down his pen. “Murdered.”

“Yes.”

“What makes
yo
u think that?”

Daniel set the glasses on the desk.

“What are those?”

“Emil
y’
s glasses.”

His father studied them, but refrained from picking them up. “How did
yo
u get them?”

“The
y
were in the sand near the inlet where she was found.”

“Wh
y
did
yo
u go out there?”

“I wanted . . .” He ended up using the same word he’d used with Stac
y.
“Closure.”

“So
yo
u found these on the beach?”

“Yes. Near the woods.”

“Kids go out there to part
y
all the time. What makes
yo
u think these were Emil
y’
s?”

When his dad said
were
instead of
are
it just reminded Daniel again that Emil
y
was gone and was not coming back, which onl
y
served to make this even harder to talk about.

“She had them on in the photos that were at the front of the church at the funeral. And I remember seeing her wearing
’e
m at school.”

“But the
y
might be someone else’s who wears the same st
yl
e.”

“I mean . . .” Daniel hesitated. “It’s possible, bu
t—”

“Dan, the coroner did an autops
y
Sunda
y
night. There’s no reason to believe that Emil
y
Jackson was murdered.”

“The glasses are broken, Dad. And I found them up the beach awa
y
from the water. If she was fighting with someone, the
y
could have gotten knocked off. Ma
yb
e that’s how the
y
got broken.”

“Fighting with someone.”

“Yes.”

Daniel doubted that bringing up the vision of Emil
y’
s ghost at the funeral asking him to find the glasses was going to help his case, so he kept that to himself. “Besides, the water level hasn’t risen enough to have carried them that high up the beach.”

“How do
yo
u know that?”

“I checked the waterline. It’s too cold to go swimming. And if she fell in accidentall
y,
how would she have had the foresight to take off her glasses beforehand and leave them there b
y
the edge of the woods?”

His father was silent. “There are an
y
number of reasons these glasses could be broken. The
y
might not even be Emil
y’
s at all, and who knows how long the
y
were out there in the sand.”

“But if it’s even possible that the
y’
re hers, that she didn’t die b
y
accident, don’t
yo
u think
yo
u should look into it? Ma
yb
e search for fingerprints or DNA or something?”

He drummed his fingers against the desk twice. “Does an
yo
ne else know about these?”

“Just Stac
y.
She was out there with me.”

“Stac
y?
”

“This new girl at school. We’re going to homecoming tonight together. To the dance.”

“I didn’t know
yo
u had a date.”

“It’s not officiall
y
a date, it’s just going to the dance.”

“Gotcha.”

“It’s sort of last-minute. I asked her this morning.”

His father thought for a moment. “Alright, listen: I’ll look into it. But I don’t want an
y
rumors going around that Emil
y
Jackson was murdered. Don’t bring this up to an
yo
ne. No texting. No tweeting. Nothing like that.”

“Don’t worr
y,
I won’t.”

“And the same goes for Stac
y.
I don’t want her talking about this with her friends.”

Daniel was glad he’d alread
y
covered that with her. “I’ll make sure. Thanks, Dad.”

He leaned back in his chair. “So what’s
yo
ur plan for the rest of the da
y?
”

“Head home, I guess. Dr
y
off. Grab some lunch. Probabl
y
work out. Hang out until the dance.”

“And
yo
ur head, it’s feeling alright after last night?”

“Yeah, it’s good.”

“If
yo
u do work out, I don’t want
yo
u doing an
yt
hing intense, not until
yo
u’ve given that head a da
y
or two to recover.”

“I’ll be careful.”

A nod. “Well, I’m not sure when I’ll be back home. If I don’t see
yo
u before
yo
u leave for the dance, I want
yo
u back b
y
midnight.”

“Right. No problem.”

Daniel waited for the res
t—
“
No part
yi
ng afterward. Don’t do an
yt
hing stupid
”
—b
ut his dad left that part unsaid. Apparentl
y,
he trusted that Daniel would know the ground rules b
y
now.

“Oka
y.
” His dad’s attention had gone back to the glasses, and as he spoke he seemed distracted. “I’ll catch up with
yo
u later.”

Daniel left his father’s office feeling both encouraged and a little uneas
y.

He was thankful his dad had agreed to follow up on all this, but just the fact that he was doing so told Daniel that there was a chance, even if it was onl
y
a slight one, that Emil
y’
s death had not been accidental.

He tried calling Stac
y
to let her know how the meeting with his dad had gone and to remind her not to tell an
yo
ne about the glasses, but she didn’t pick up and it went to a generic voicemail, just telling him to leave a message. He told her to call him, and then texted her in case she wasn’t checking her messages.

Back at the house, while he was throwing some leftovers together for lunch, he got a text. Thinking it might be Stac
y,
he checked the phone right awa
y,
but saw it was just from one of the gu
ys
on the team, asking how his head was. He replied that he was fine.

A little later in the afternoon, while he was finishing lifting weights in the basement, his dad called and explained that he’d sent the glasses b
y
courier to the FBI office down in Milwaukee.

It wasn’t something he was obligated in an
y
wa
y
to share with Daniel, but putting things into pla
y
that quickl
y
on a Saturda
y
told him that his dad wasn’t fooling around; he reall
y
had taken Daniel’s concerns seriousl
y.

He texted Stac
y
again, tried calling her. Nothing. He kept the phone close b
y,
but an hour later, he still hadn’t heard an
yt
hing from her.

Daniel thought back through their conversation at the lake and couldn’t remember if she’d specificall
y
agreed to meet him at school tonight, or just agreed in a more general sense to go with him.

Regardless, she had told him to give her a call this afternoon. That much he remembered for sure.

At five, when he still hadn’t heard from her, he reassured himself that she must have meant that he was supposed to meet up with her at the dance.

That’s all it was.

A slight miscommunication.

Just something for them to clear up when the
y
connected tonight at school.

As he considered things, he couldn’t shake the thought that there’d been a fight out there on the beach, a fight that had resulted in Emil
y’
s death.

At least now the FBI was looking into the glasses.

He wanted to talk to someone about it, but he couldn’t bring it up to an
yo
ne.

Except for Stac
y.

Well, he could do that when he saw her in just a couple hours.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

At seven, Stac
y
hadn’t returned his calls and hadn’t texted him back.

The dance started at eight.

She’d told him she lived near the lake but hadn’t said exactl
y
wher
e—a
lthough it had to be within walking distance, and it was most likel
y
in that neighborhood near the lakeshore.

However, he didn’t know what car she drove, so it wasn’t like he could just cruise the roads in the area looking for her car parked in front of a house or an
yt
hing.

He and K
yl
e had poked around online to see if the
y
could find out more about her, but had come up dr
y.
So there wasn’t an address he could work from.

Daniel felt like if he left an
y
more messages for her, it would have made him seem desperate. And driving around looking for her house would have definitel
y
come across as stalkerish.

In the end, he couldn’t think of an
y
wa
y
to get in touch with her, and when he called K
yl
e to tell him what was going on, his friend told him he should just show up at the dance and look for her there.

“Since
yo
u didn’t get a chance to talk to her this afternoon, she’s gonna assume
yo
u’ll meet her at school. I mean, since it came up in
yo
ur conversation an
yw
a
y,
right? Make sense?”

“Unless I got the wrong number and now she thinks I changed m
y
mind and don’t want to take her after all.”

“Did the texts go through?”

“M
y
phone said the
y
did.”

“Then ma
yb
e she changed her mind and is just ignoring
yo
u.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure. Well, there’s onl
y
one wa
y
to find out what’s
going on.”

“Show up at the dance.”

“Mia and I will meet
yo
u gu
ys
there.”

Daniel wanted to tell him about the trip to the lake and the glasses, and about how the FBI was even going to be involved, but knowing how important confidentialit
y
with all this was to his dad, he said nothing.

T
y
Bell and his buddies were loitering outside the school when Daniel arrived.

Smoking wasn’t permitted on school propert
y,
but the
y
were being discreet about it and taking puffs onl
y
when no teachers or chaperones were passing b
y.
From the smell of it, at least one of them was smoking something other than just a cigarette.

The
y
leered at Daniel as he entered but said nothing. However, T
y
dropped his cigarette butt to the ground and roughl
y
stomped the life out of it with his heel.

There were two dances at Beldon High ever
y ye
a
r—h
omecoming in the fall and prom in the spring. In contrast to how formal prom was, homecoming was a lot more a come-as-
yo
u-are deal. A few people alwa
ys
dressed up, but most of the students didn’t bother.

The theme this
ye
ar was “Under the Stars,” and the glee club had all these sparkling aluminum foil stars hanging from the ceiling throughout the school entrance and in the cafeteria, which was open in case students wanted to hang out there instead of dancing in the adjoining g
ym
nasium.

Daniel found K
yl
e and Mia near the cafeteria’s doorwa
y
to the g
ym
.

Mia was a slender, pale girl with straight black hair and a pierced lip and studded tongue. Under her jeans jacket, she wore a retro cutoff T-shirt that revealed her slim midriff and her pierced navel. Not t
yp
ical fare for an autumn dance, ma
yb
e, but not unusual at all for Mia.

She had one arm tucked around K
yl
e’s waist. “What’s up, Daniel?”

“Mia, good to see
yo
u. How’s the book coming along?”

“Smokin’.”

Daniel had never met an
yo
ne who was tr
yi
ng to write a novel before, let alone someone his age who was doing it, but Mia was nearl
y
as gifted at English as K
yl
e was, and that’s probabl
y
one of the things that attracted them to each other.

Her book was going to be a ghost stor
y,
which, given ever
yt
hing that was going on this week, Daniel found ironicall
y
appropriate.

When Mia saw how some of the girls were glancing toward Daniel, she said, “Lots of moths here tonight.”

He looked at her curiousl
y.
“Moths?”

“Yeah. And
yo
u’re the flame, Señor Quarterback.”

“Ah.”

“So where’s this Stac
y
girl?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll introduce
yo
u as soon as I track her down.”

Daniel wasn’t sure where to start looking for Stac
y,
but she wasn’t outside or in the cafeteria, so he figured she had to be in the g
ym
.

Even though the
y’
d lost the homecoming game last night, it didn’t seem to have dampened the mood of the dance too much.

Balloons and homecoming banners hung throughout the g
ym
nasium. Last spring some kids had spiked the punch at prom, so even though there’d been talk about not having an
y
at the dance tonight, a table had been set up near the bleachers and a clutch of chaperones and teachers stood close b
y
to keep an e
ye
on things.

Daniel had the sense that the people who would be into spiking the punch would just see it as more of a challenge with all the adults around and would still find a wa
y
to get booze into the bowls.

Coach Jostens was stationed with a few teachers b
y
the table, scanning the crowd of students as if he were looking for someone. He acknowledged Daniel with a small gesture and Daniel replied in kind. Miss Fl
yn
n and Mr. McKinne
y
stood talking with each other near some parent chaperones.

Mr. Ackerman, the photographer who’d been at the game, had a place set up in the corner to take the pictures of kids who wanted them professionall
y
done. There was no line.

A few people, those who actuall
y
knew how to dance, were on the floor, but most of the girls were clumped up together along one wall. The gu
ys
had set themselves up along another.

Things would loosen up. The
y
alwa
ys
did.

Daniel had no idea how dances used to go before cell phones, but lots of kids were texting and checking their messages to make it look like the
y
were engaged with something, when the
y
were actuall
y
either not into dancing, didn’t have an
yo
ne to dance with, or were too anxious to ask an
yo
ne onto the dance floor.

Sports were huge at Beldon High and nearl
y
ever
yo
ne recognized their local football star, Daniel B
ye
rs. Gu
ys
greeted him or stepped out of his wa
y;
the moths fluttered and flirted, especiall
y
when the
y
saw he wasn’t with a girl. He tried his best to politel
y
ignore them.

He passed through the crowd looking for Stac
y,
but didn’t see her an
yw
here. Not even in the groups of girls who were now forming on the dance floor.

A strobe light hung somewhat precariousl
y
above them. For some reason there was even a fog machine.

A huge screen hung at one end of the g
ym
with music videos of the songs that were pla
yi
ng. Once things got started it would actuall
y
help some kids who were having a hard time knowing how to dance.

Earlier in the
ye
ar it’d looked like K
yl
e and a couple of his friends who were tr
yi
ng to put a band together were going to pla
y
for the dance, but for some reason that had fallen throug
h—p
robabl
y
because their music wasn’t so much high school dance fare, but had more of a college-coffeehouse vibe going on.

A senior whom Daniel had seen around but didn’t reall
y
know was DJing and was choosing mostl
y
pop and electronica trance tracks. Whichever song he’d chosen must have been popular, because kids flooded the dance floor.

The music became intense. Students in the middle of the g
ym
, where no chaperones opted to go, started grinding against each other crazil
y
in the erratic, pulsing light.

Stac
y
was nowhere to be seen.

Tr
yi
ng not to be too conspicuous, Daniel made his wa
y
across the g
ym
searching for her, but if she was here she was also invisible, because he couldn’t find her an
yw
here.

He checked his phone, then the punch table again.

Nope.

Nothing.

But he did see Nicole standing b
y
herself at the far end, holding a plastic cup.

He could hardl
y
believe that a girl as popular as Nicole wasn’t dancing with someone, and the onl
y
thing he could think of was that whatever gu
y
she was with had just stepped awa
y
for a minute.

Leaving her alone.

Like Emil
y
was.

Before she died.

For a moment he thought back to the beach, to the glasses, to what Ronnie had told him the other da
y
about his suspicions that his sister had been killed.

Nicole looked a little embarrassed when she saw Daniel, but nodded a greeting. When he asked her how she was doing, she gave him a somewhat forced smile. “Good. I’m good. You? Having fun
ye
t?”

“I prett
y
much just got here.” The music throbbing around them made it a little hard to carr
y
on a conversation and the
y
had to lean close to each other to talk.

She gazed past him and he guessed she was tr
yi
ng to figure out if he was here with an
yo
ne. For a moment he thought about telling her that he was looking for his date, but then decided against it.

A few seconds later one of Nicole’s friends came b
y,
so she excused herself, and he went to look for Stac
y
again.

Ten minutes later he still hadn’t found her or gotten an
y
messages from her.

As he was leaving the g
ym
to search b
y
the front doors once more, he ran into K
yl
e and Mia. Neither of them looked too into the DJ’s choice of music. When K
yl
e saw that Daniel was still alone he raised his hands palms up:
Well?

Daniel shook his head and joined them. “I’m not sure how long I should wait for her.”

K
yl
e turned to Mia. “A girl’s perspective. What do
yo
u think?”

“You want honest
y
or politesse?”

“Honest
y.
”

“I think it suck
s—a
nd that’s wa
y
toning down m
y
honest
y.
” Then she said to Daniel, “Leaving
yo
u hanging like this? Ver
y
uncool. Especiall
y
not even returning
yo
ur texts.”

“Give it a few more minutes,” K
yl
e suggested. “Then we can bail. Chill at m
y
place.”

Even though Daniel was good friends with both K
yl
e and Mia, truthfull
y,
he did sometimes feel like a third wheel when it was just the three of them hanging out together. On the other hand, it was reall
y
awkward being here at the dance without a date.

Just head home. If Stac
y
doesn’t show up, take off. You don’t need to sta
y.

The song ended and when the DJ threw on a slow dance, Mia took K
yl
e’s hand. As she led him toward the dance floor he called back to Daniel, “He
y,
we’ll see
yo
u in a bit, oka
y?
”

“Sure.”

Daniel’s e
ye
s followed them into the g
ym
and he saw Nicole standing b
y
herself again, this time near the door to the visitors locker room. Ever since he’d spoken with her earlier he hadn’t seen her dancing with an
y
gu
ys
.

Ma
yb
e she’d come alone after all.

Or ma
yb
e her date stood her up, just like
yo
urs did.

For a couple seconds he was tempted to ask her to dance, but in the end he figured that wouldn’t fl
y
too well with Stac
y
if she did happen to show up.