Echols, Jennifer (8 page)

We stood there by the bridge, at this impasse, for what seemed like a long time.

Finally I took a deep breath and uncrossed my arms with effort, letting them hang by my sides. I felt naked. "The Kia knows you're looking for him and you're probably working all night. He plans to hide out somewhere until morning, then blend into the rush hour traffic headed to Birmingham. In the meantime, he knows you're the only one chasing him. He figures he's not that important. So he'll pick a hiding place that has two ways out, like I said."

John uncrossed his arms. "For instance?"

"The quarry. The airport. Behind the rental storage buildings."

He nodded at the car. "Let's go."

On the bumpy drive back to the main road, I tried to gauge whether we were on speaking terms again, or whether we were going to spend the rest of the night plus three more in this uncomfortable silence. I tried it out. "Why are you bothering? He dumped the shit out the window fifteen minutes ago."

"Even if I caught him with something, it wouldn't stick. Usually doesn't. Or he'd be out in six months. I just like to scare them."

Right before he pulled onto the main road, he turned up the radio, probably so he wouldn't have to talk to me again. He still bit his lip gently. But by the time we reached the dirt road through the woods that eventually would snake behind the storage buildings, he'd recovered. With a glance at me, he said, "You know an awful lot about hiding from cops."

"I don't make daily drug buys, if that's what you're thinking. I go parking."

He grinned, showing his dimples.

"Don't act like you're above it," I laughed. "Next weekend, I'd better not find you in all my parking places."

"I don't need to go parking anymore. I have an apartment."

"That's right. I forget you're the big nineteen." I had assumed he still lived with his parents. Now I wondered what it would be like to make out (or more) in a boy's apartment. No cops to sneak up on you. No parents to walk in on you.

With Johnafter.

Who liked me only because I reminded him of a dead girl. So. never mind.

He cut the headlights, and the car crept to the edge of a cliff. Below us, we could see the roof of the Kia behind the storage buildings.

"If you drive down there," I said, "he'll just escape the other way. That's what he's counting on. You have to walk down there, point your gun at him, and yell at him in that charming way you have."

John radioed to Lois and opened the door. As he got out, he tossed at me, "You have a brilliant criminal mind."

"Thanks, I think." I watched him walk down the road through the forest with his hand on his gun. The floodlights over the storage buildings hummed low.

Chapter 8

“We're doing Mickey D's instead of the diner tonight?" I asked as he steered the car into the McDonald's parking lot.

"No, too early."

True. 11:30 p.m. was way too early for lunch.

"I just need to chase off these loiterers," he said.

The curly-haired loiterer I recognized as Will Billingsley, John's alleged former friend from the track team. I didn't know him that well, but I knew who he was. Everybody knew who Will was. Will was very friendly. The redhead was Skip Clark, and the hunky black guy might even have been Rashad Lowry.

John must feel cocky after successfully apprehending the small-time drug buyer. He'd impounded the Kia. Now he was going after his friends? Yes, they were standing where teenage loiterers stood to see and be seen, at the edge of the playground, by the picnic tables. But they also were eating trench fries, so they were patrons. They couldn't technically be considered loiterers.

John waited for me to round the car, then crossed the parking lot with me. I was about to suggest he reconsider his tactics with the town's youth when Will called, "Little Johnny Afterrrrrrrr!"

John broke into a huge smile, dimples and all.

As John reached their circle, Rashad leaned in to give him a bear hug, but Will held Rashad back. "Don't touch him while he's in uniform," Will said.

"Apologies," Rashad said. "I forgot I am not to touch the incredible expanding Johnafter."

The fit track team boys towered over me, and John was only a little taller than them. But they gave him more room than they gave one another. The dark blue uniform and broad chest and I'm-in-charge stance created a bubble around him. He was one of them, but not. One of these things was not like the others.

"Vat have you been up to, Governor?" Skip asked with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent.

"The relentless pursuit of crime," John said. He pronounced
crime
with a long southern drawl and a wink. Then he burst into laughter with the rest of them.

Seeing him jogging at the park had cracked the window so I could peek into his soul. Seeing him with his friends threw the window wide open.

He was
so
nineteen.

As if he could read my mind, he turned to me and whispered, "You didn't see me laughing." To the others he said, "Don't make me laugh while I'm in uniform."

Skip asked John something else about work, and Will turned to me. "I know you from high school. Meg, right?"

"That's right."

"Why are you riding around with John? I'll bet you're one of those suspects from the bridge."

John called across the circle, "No, she's undercover."

"Oh, like Sydney on
Alias,"
Will said. Of the possible comparisons, that was pretty flattering. He tugged a lock of my hair to see if it was a wig.

Disapproval flashed across John s face. I wondered whether no one was supposed to touch
me
while he was in uniform, either.

Will noticed John's look. He moved his hand away. Loudly enough for John to hear, he asked me, "What do you think of Officer After so far?"

"He's an excellent driver."

"He wasn't always," Will said. "I taught him to drive. The
police academy may
have helped some." He pronounced
police academy
strangely, the same way John did. This was an old, old joke between them.

"We're headed to the Redneck Riviera tomorrow," Rashad said to John. "You want to come?" That must have been why they were hanging out around this town. They'd stopped here to visit their parents on their way to the Florida Panhandle for spring break.

"I already asked him," Will said. "He has to work."

"Just because you're not in school doesn't mean you don't deserve a spring break," Rashad told John. "Even the fuzz needs love."

"Looks like he's already got some," Skip said.

Everybody looked at Skip blankly.

Did he mean me?

"Anyway," John said, "I don't think I'd be welcome, if Eric's going."

"He's not going," Skip said. "His parents grounded him because of the bridge incident. Can you imagine? Grounded."

Indeed I couldn't imagine. John and Eric were the same age. John was a policeman, and Eric was grounded.

"He's not too grounded," Rashad said. "I saw his Beamer five minutes ago."

"Not grounded from driving his Beamer," Will said. “Just grounded from driving two hundred and fifty miles to the beach. Come on. You don't expect
grounded to
mean the same thing for him as it does for everyone else, do you?"

Skip took a hit off an imaginary roach. "I am better than you," he said in a stoned voice. "I am a high. School. Graduate!"

Rashad guffawed, but John and Will didn't laugh. In fact, Will seemed to be giving Rashad and Skip a warning look they didn't see.

John pointed at me. "Coffee?" I nodded, and he turned and walked toward McDonald's. I stopped myself from calling after him how I took it: cream and three sugars. After one night with me, John knew how I took my coffee. We drank a lot of coffee.

Will watched John until the door to McDonald's closed behind him. Then he yelled, "Skip, you dummy. What did you say that for?"

"What?" Skip asked innocently.

"Making fun of John for being a high. School. Graduate?"

"I was making fun of Eric, not John."

"Besides," Rashad said, "John's more than a high. School. Graduate. He's a graduate of the
police academy."

He pronounced it strangely, too. They were all in on the joke. They must have really ribbed John about it last summer when they finished high school and everyone but John left town.

Will shook his head and turned to me. "So, you're dating Eric? What's
that
about?" "Not really dating," I said.

"I thought you were dating. I thought John said he caught you on the bridge together." "More like consorting."

Will gasped and put his hand to his mouth in mock horror. Luckily, Rashad and Skip were talking to each other and didn't notice. Otherwise, I might have kneed Will.

"In case you haven't figured this out," he said, "Eric is bad news. You should stay away from him."

I shrugged. "Eric's not that evil. It's a rite of passage to get in trouble when you're a freshman in college, isn't it? Finding yourself or whatever."

"Eric found himself a long time ago," Skip called. "He found himself to be a stoner."

"Maybe you didn't know him that well in school," Will told me, "but we all learned our lesson about Eric in sixth grade, when he huffed gasoline on a Boy Scout camping trip."

"And John told the Scoutmaster," Rashad offered.

"And John told the Scoutmaster!" Will said, grinning. "It's a blood feud by now."

I shrugged again. "Like I said, I'm not serious with Eric, anyway."

"How about..." Will nodded toward McDonald's.

"You mean am I serious with
John?"
My heart raced at this idea—exciting and terrifying at the same time. I reminded myself that being serious with John wasn't a possibility, just a misunderstanding on Will's part. "John doesn't like me very much."

All three of them made
nuh-uh
noises.

"When y'all walked over here from the car," Will said, "he had his hand on your—" He put his hand at waist level behind me, without touching me.

"He had his hand on my ass?"

"No," they said.

"Behind your back," Rashad said. "Like you're dating or something." He put his hand behind Skip's back. Skip hit him.

"It was enough for all three of us to notice," Will said.

I wanted to say,
But my hair is blue!
I decided this went without saying.

"And he smells good," Will said.

Skip took a big whiff of Rashad. "You smell like Teen Spirit."

While Skip and Rashad shoved each other, I looked up at Will and said quietly, "I remind him of the girl who got killed on the bridge."

Will went very still. "Oh. Right. You messed with his bridge. He's been obsessed with the bridge since he was nine. What he lacks in clarity, he makes up for in consistency."

"Here comes the heat," Skip said. "Act natural."

John came back to the circle, handed me one of the cups of coffee, then stepped between Will and me. Will moved over. John looked around at our faces. "'Fess up."

"Nevah," Skip said in the Schwarzenegger voice.

"I ran into Angie in Target," Will told John. "She's staying with her folks in town this week."

"Why doesn't
she
go to Florida?" John asked.

"She says she hopes she'll see you while she's here."

John gaped. "Why?
She
broke up with
me\"

"Girls are icky and have cooties." Will nodded to me. "Pardon."

" Angie's coming to my party when we get back Saturday night," Rashad said. "You can make it to that at least, John. Whether you want to see her or not."

"I have to work," John said.

"There is much work to be done for da people of California," said Skip Schwarzenegger.

"Would you like to come to my party?" Rashad asked me. "Eric will probably be there. I've never known Eric to miss a party, even when he wasn't invited."

John said, "No," just as I asked, "Where is it?"

"Around the corner from Five Points," Rashad said. "You know where that is?"

I loved Five Points, the artsy section of Birmingham near UAB, filled with cool shops and apartment buildings from the 1920s. In the center of the intersection was a fountain with statues of animals. A big ram held a book and read to a bear, a rabbit stacked on a turtle, and other forest creatures. Some people said the ram was the Devil. He had horns and hooves and told stories to other beasties. And five frogs in the shape of a pentagram spat water at him. But the fountain sat in front of a beautiful old church, with a glass-tiled synagogue down the street. You would think the Devil would be canceled out by the houses o' worship.

"I'll be there," I said at the same time John said, "No. She's seventeen." While Rashad gave me the apartment building and number, John edged closer behind me. "Rashad, she's seventeen."

I looked around at John. "I'll be eighteen in May."

"The party is in March." The small radio on his shoulder suddenly buzzed with static and Lois's voice. He spoke a few words into it, then put his hand on the back of my neck. "Official police business."

"Leave da woman," Skip said. "She must pass da state inspection."

John's hand tightened briefly on my neck, then let go. He was behind me, so I couldn't see the look he gave Skip. It must have been ugly. Skip put up both his hands. "I'm kidding!"

John and I headed back to the car. When we got in, John started the engine, and I punched the correct siren. It should have been exciting to go investigate another crime.

But all I could think about was John's hand on the back of my neck. It had happened so fast—there, and then gone. The hair on my scalp stood on end
anyway.

As John drove out of the parking lot, Rashad and Skip talked together, and Will watched our car. Rashad poked Will's shoulder, but Will continued to watch us. He never took his eyes off us. As if he expected the cop car to burst into flames.

We sped across town, siren shrieking. But by the time we got to the crime scene, the burglary was over. Neighbors said the victims were out of town for spring break. Officer Leroy was standing guard.

There wasn't much for John to do. Just a little Official Police Business such as securing the scene and smoking a cigarette and waiting an hour for the detective to show up.

There was also a lot of Sullen Malarkey on John's part. I followed him around the ransacked house, stepping over broken furniture, trying to make conversation. Every time I asked him a question, he said, "Don't touch that."

"Do you work your way up from cop to detective eventually?"

"If you want to. I don't want to. Don't touch that."

"I see. You're all man, right? You don't want a desk job. You want the thrill of the hunt, the adrenaline rush."

"No. I just don't want to be a detective. They figure out what happened after the fact, when it's too late. I want to prevent it from happening. Don't touch that."

"Yeah, you were a lot of use to these folks. When they get back from vacation and see the Yankees stole their silver, they'll want to meet you and thank you in person. They might even buy you a Moon Pie."

"Meg, for the last time, you're tampering with evidence. Don't touch—Get out of here. Go wait for me in the Goddamn car."

I slammed the door of the crime scene on my way out.

Then I sat in the Goddamn car, lowered the windows, blasted the heat so I didn't freeze in the dark, and turned up the radio. "Dirty Little Secret" again. I'd figured out last night, after the sixth playing of "Dirty Little Secret," that no one bothered to man the radio station in the wee hours. They stacked twenty tunes in endless rotation. These songs were an odd mix, too, like someone had grabbed a handful of CDs and thrown them in the machine before they went home to bed.