Tiona (a sequel to "Vaz") (9 page)

“
I
would have been… But
not
the next girl,” Gettnor said, as if stating the obvious.

Mary simply stared at the young woman for a moment. “So you’re telling me… that you made that loop through the neighborhood with a guy chasing you, just so you could twist around and confuse him about where he was? So that you could let him catch you right in front of the police station where we’d be sure to arrest him?”

Gettnor nodded.

“And you weren’t afraid that he was going to catch you?”

Gettnor shrugged, “I run a
lot
. There wasn’t any way he was going to catch me.”

Mary said nothing for a minute or two while she thought about this implausible story. “So, you run a lot. You’re not homeless. You own an AI. It doesn’t sound like you’re poor?”

“I’m not.”

“So why are you eating at the homeless shelter?” Mary asked exasperatedly.

“It lets me… learn about the people eating there. Who’s really got problems and who doesn’t. I… help the ones I think might really benefit from it.”

Mary snorted, “You don’t think that anyone who’s eating at the homeless shelter could benefit from some help?”

Gettnor shrugged, “
I
don’t need any help. A lot of them are addicted. If you gave
them
money, they’d just blow it on drugs or alcohol. It would be ‘enabling.’ But
some
of them have had something really bad happen to them and
they
just need a little help. Something to get them back on their feet. Those are the ones I help.”

Mary blinked, “And how do you help them?”

“Usually with money. Occasionally something else. Sometimes I just put cash directly into their pockets while they’re not looking, but usually the money gets filtered through the social workers that help out at the shelter.”

“So you’re telling me…” Mary paused to think, “You’re saying that you’re not only ‘not poor,’ but you have enough extra money to help these people out?”

Gettnor nodded slowly.

“And you dress this way,” Mary waved a hand slowly up and down at Gettnor, “why?”

Gettnor shrugged, “No one at the shelter would be talking to me if I came in nice clothes.”

“What do you do? For a living I mean.”

“I’m a student at the University.”

Mary’s eyes widened, “Where does all this money come from?!”

“My parents.”

“So you’re daddy’s little rich girl? Going to school during the day and rescuing homeless people at night?”

Gettnor sat and stared at Mary for a moment, chewing her lip. Then she said, “That’s correct. Do you mind if I ask why you’re grilling me? Have I committed a crime that I’m not aware of?”

Mary paused and went back through their conversation in her mind, realizing that she
had
been sounding a bit hostile. “No. Sorry. Just the whole story seems a little bit incredible to me. But there’s nothing illegal about what you’ve been doing.” She glanced up into the corner of the room while she thought a second, “Though maybe it’s a little unethical to be eating the homeless people’s food when you don’t need it.”

“I donate a lot more money to the shelter than it would take to cover the cost of my food.”

“Yeah, sorry, I’m sure you do. In any case, you’re not the one on trial here.” Mary rubbed her forehead and frowned. “I think I understand what happened between you and Mr. McAllister tonight.” She raised an eyebrow, “In Durham last year four women were murdered and a couple escaped, all of whom were chased by a man over long distances. It’s probably a
very
good thing you didn’t let Mr. McAllister catch up to you since he fits the
modus operandi
.”

Tiona only nodded.

Mary sighed and looked Tiona in the eye, “This must’ve been quite a traumatic experience for you, would you like some counseling?”

“No thanks. Will you be able to associate him with those crimes?”

Mary looked at the girl a moment. She didn’t look the least bit traumatized.
Could she be hiding it? Well the psych people couldn’t help people who refused their services.
To Gettnor she said, “Probably. There was some DNA left at a couple of the scenes.”

“Good. May I go?”

“Sure, let me get an officer to drive you home.”

Gettnor stood, “No need, it’s not very far.”

“But after what you’ve just been through…”

“I’m fine.” Gettnor said turning and starting out the door.

Mary sat and stared after her, then turned back to her report.
If they don’t want help, you can’t make them get it,
she thought to herself.

***

Nolan and Susie walked into the Cat’s Cradle. Like Judy, Nolan had met Susie online. She was a music enthusiast and particularly liked a relatively unknown guitarist by the name of Ronnie Winters. Nolan did a search and found out that Winters was putting on his first show at the Cradle with a new band. Although Nolan wasn’t wild about Susie, he liked her better than some other girls he’d been out with recently so he’d bought some tickets and asked her if she would like to go.

Susie had been appropriately pumped up about going, even though it was on a Tuesday night. She’d suggested they get there a half an hour late because Winters apparently never showed up on time for his gigs. When they’d walked in he’d heard some music.  Having little experience with live venues he turned to Susie and said, “Oops, it looks like he started on time and we’re late.”

She waved that idea off. “Nah, they’re just playing some canned music to fill the time. This is much too mellow for Ronnie.”

Assuming that Susie must be right, Nolan hadn’t really looked at the stage when they’d entered. He’d looked around the room which had a big open floor with a few people standing around in it. There were some booths around the edges and a few sets of tables and chairs here and there. A bar was at the very back of the room. Nolan liked the canned music and suspected he would prefer it to Winters when Winters came on. He’d listened to a little bit of Winters’ music online and thought it was kind of harsh. What was playing was kind of a mellow guitar piece.

Suddenly Susie grabbed his arm, “Nolan! Ronnie
is
playing already! Just him and his guitar!”

Nolan looked at Susie first. She looked practically rapturous as she stared at the stage. Nolan looked at the stage and saw a lanky man sitting on a stool and playing acoustic guitar. Another guy was walking onto the stage behind Winters, carrying a bass guitar. “Cool,” he said. “You want a beer?”

Susie nodded without taking her eyes off the stage.

“What kind?”

“Guinness.”

Nolan made a little face, though not where she could see it. He didn’t like strong beers like Guinness. “Be right back,” he said with a cheerful lilt.

Nolan headed back to the bar where he bought Susie’s Guinness and a Coors Light for himself. He would have got himself a Coke because he rarely drank on weeknights, but had decided the Coors Light was wimpy enough. He got them to pour his Coors into a cup so Susie wouldn’t know what it was.

He walked out into the main hall and found Susie still standing raptly in the middle of the floor. The bass player had started filling in the bottom end of the music, making things a little fuller. There were empty tables still, so Nolan went over and put their beers on one. He went out to where Susie stood, “Hey Suze,” he said, speaking up to be heard over the music, “I got us a table.” When she looked at him he hooked his thumb over towards the table with their beer.

He would have sworn she looked disappointed and he wondered if she would have preferred to stand in the middle of the floor all night. She followed him over to the table and they sat down. Susie took the chair that faced the stage. Nolan asked, “How do you like this mellower music he’s playing?”

“It’s awesome!” she said euphorically without looking away from the stage.

Up on the stage, a drummer took a seat and began tapping out a rhythm on his hi-hat. Nolan liked the music much more than he’d expected, but was beginning to think this date was going to be a complete dud. He’d been thinking they could come listen for an hour or two and then go, but the way Susie looked enraptured he had a feeling they’d be staying until the band shut down sometime after midnight. He laughed at himself. He was young. He should be able to stay out late and then go to work the next day without whining about it.

Feeling like Susie was ignoring him; Nolan let his eyes drift around the Cradle. More and more people were drifting in and many were standing in the middle of the floor like Susie had been. Nolan wondered whether that was what the real fans did. His eyes focused on a slender girl in the middle of the floor. She had on a knit cap, a little jacket, snug jeans and short boots with little heels. He was only seeing her from the back, and mostly in silhouette, but the girl’s body looked awesome.

Nolan looked back at Susie. She was focused on the band, or more likely, on Winters himself. He tried to think of something to say to her, but then realized that conversation over the music would be difficult. Talking probably wasn’t what you did on a date like this.
This is going to be a long night,
he thought to himself. He leaned back in his chair and tried to enjoy the music.

His eyes drifted admiringly back to the slender girl in front of him. Her butt swayed entrancingly to the music.

As the night had gone on, Winters and his band played faster and louder. Using more aggressive instruments, distorted guitar, and wailing vocals; it had gone from the gentle acoustic beginning to a hard rock middle. At one point Nolan had gone into the bathroom. There he’d taken some toilet paper and rolled it into little balls which he’d stuffed in his ears to cut the volume down from painful to merely loud. He hoped Susie didn’t see the little balls in his ears and worried that he might not be able to get them out.
It’ll be embarrassing if I have to go the ER to get these damned things out of my ears!

Susie hadn’t said much to him, other than to ask him if he’d like her to buy him a beer. Instead he’d volunteered to go get beers for them himself. At least he got a change in scenery. When he was at the table, he spent most of his time admiring the girl in the snug jeans, even shifting his chair a couple of times to be able to keep her in view when other people stood in the way.

Things seemed to be winding down now though. The band was playing slower and softer. People who’d been dancing wildly were now just shifting their hips. Susie stood up and Nolan also stood, thinking she wanted to leave. However, apparently she was just too enthralled with the music to stay seated. She had a beatific expression on her face as she focused all her attention on the stage.

Nolan’s eyes drifted back to the girl he’d been watching all night, but she was gone. The rest of the band had actually left the stage and Winters was playing guitar by himself again. He wound it down and stopped on a slow strum of his last chord. He took a little bow.

The crowd burst into enthusiastic applause. So enthusiastic that Nolan worried the band would come back for an encore. He turned to Susie, “You ready to go?”

She gave a little nod and started slowly making her way to the exit, still not taking her eyes off of Winters. Nolan looked that way and saw that Winters was talking to the slender girl Nolan had been admiring all night. As he and Susie made their way to the side exit, Nolan kept looking toward the stage himself. The girl turned and started toward the exit herself.

Tiona!

***

As Nolan left his early morning class his mind turned once again to the surprising end of his date last night at the Cat’s Cradle. There were so many things he had a difficult time reconciling. The sexy Tiona he’d seen at the Cradle didn’t jibe with his internal concept of the frumpy girl who worked in his lab. A girl who ate at the homeless shelter shouldn’t be spending her money on a show at the Cat’s Cradle. She’d obviously been alone, Nolan had seen a couple of guys try to talk to her, but she’d brushed them off so he could be relatively certain no one else had paid for her admission. Why was she there if she didn’t want to meet any of the guys? Could she have been hoping for a girl?

And how had she managed to spend the entire evening fascinating him more than his date, when he hadn’t even seen her except from behind?

Several times Nolan had decided that the girl at the Cradle was just someone who looked like Tiona.

But he was pretty sure that wasn’t true.

Opening the door, Nolan stepped into the lab. Tiona was there already, bent over her apparatus. His dream that she might be wearing clothes like she’d had on last night came crashing down. She had on an oversized sweater and loose jeans rolled up at the ankles. “Hey Tiona,” he said.

“Hey Nolan,” she said, but she didn’t look up. Nolan walked to his desk and set down his stuff. Distractedly, he wondered what he should work on today.
Writing up my results,
he decided.