No Good Deed (28 page)

Sonora could see that she was just warming up.

‘He'd go through her stuff, her
drawers,
her backpack, and lie to her and tell her he didn't. So she starts setting little traps for him.'

Josh bowed his head, emitted a series of low, masculine chuckles.

‘And he's reading her journal! That she had to write for Flutie's class! That really did it!

‘And see, she had all this stuff to work out, and I'm talking about really adult-level stuff here, not kid areas. Stuff. And so she starts keeping two of them, journals, you know? One for her dad and Flutie, and a, like, private one in her locker.'

‘She was a good writer,' Josh said. ‘She could have written songs. Only she had to move it.'

‘Move what?' Sonora said. One moment she had been following, the next she was lost.

Maggie gave Josh a wary look, but it was his turn to talk, and he didn't notice.

‘'Cause one time she was sick, you know, with bronchitis, so her dad came and picked up all her assignments and crap. And Mr Madrigan gets her books out of her locker, so it was a real close call. Her dad almost got that good journal, you know, the real one? So after that, she keeps it in Maggie's locker.'

Maggie stared at the ground.

‘Who's the boyfriend?' Sam said.

‘It's this guy, goes to Rembrandt, whole other school. She met him at the mall, or something.'

‘Yeah, he works at Chick Fillet.'

‘You know his name?' Sam asked.

‘Bryan,' Josh said.

‘She only mentioned him, like, a million times a day,' Maggie told them.

‘Last name?'

Josh looked at Maggie. ‘Simpson?'

‘No, stupid, that's Bart.
Martin.
Bryan Martin. They used to meet down at this secret place – I'm not exactly sure where it was, she never would tell. It was a farm somewhere by a pond, and some kid, like, got killed there a whole long time ago.'

Sam gave Sonora a look.

‘That stuff you were talking about – that Joelle had to work out—'

Maggie snorted. ‘She wasn't a drug dealer, okay? And she didn't, like, go with the gangs. She didn't declare.' Josh started up again, with the chuckles. Maggie wrapped her arms around her knees. ‘I don't know for sure the details, I just know it was a home thing, with her dad.'

‘Was he abusive?' Sam. Ever so delicate.

‘Ick, no, not
that
kind of stuff, she would've
told
me, she'd've gone right to Ms Clifford if that was it. We get lectured on that in Health and everything. It was like … she had this big decision. Something to do with her dad. And she didn't want to cause him a lot of grief, 'cause even though he was really, really lame, he was a, you know, good like a parent. I mean, he took care of her and all. She wasn't going to just cause him all this grief because he wouldn't let her talk on the phone after eleven. Which I thought was totally mature on her part.'

‘But you don't know what it was?'

They shook their heads. ‘She didn't want to say. She got secretive. She didn't want to get him in trouble.'

Josh fingered the zipper on his jacket. ‘Plus she wasn't sure yet. She had some stuff to check out.'

‘No, Josh.' Maggie flipped her hair back yet again. ‘She knew for sure, 'cause I saw her, like, a week ago, and she was
completely
freaked. She said it was like reality just shifted. I mean, whatever she found out, I think she kind of just went after it, like a quest, and then when it turned out to be real, it was too much.'

‘And you think it had something to do with her dad?'

‘I just don't know for sure. She kind of would not talk about it. Like, once she knew, she had to keep it to herself and deal with it.'

Sam nodded. ‘About that journal.'

Maggie got up, dusted off the back of her jeans. ‘It's in my locker.'

Sam gave Sonora a hand up. ‘Was Joelle close to any of her teachers?'

Maggie shook her head. ‘She liked Mr Regal, her algebra teacher, but that was last year.'

‘She flunked algebra,' Josh said.

‘No she didn't, and she still liked Mr Regal. But he's at the middle school now, I'm pretty sure.'

‘How about Mr Madrigan?'

‘The
vice
?' Maggie looked at Josh. Something funny yet again.

‘What now?' Sonora said.

‘It was like a bet,' Josh told them. ‘He keeps a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream in his middle drawer, and, like, she was hanging around him a lot so maybe she'd get a chance to take it. Those Bailey's bottles are the biggest trophies in the whole school.'

‘Now she'll never get it.' Maggie's eyes turned red, and Josh put an arm around her.

Sam got his keys out, looked over his shoulder at the school, the hordes streaming from the red-brick buildings into the square, windowless gymnasium.

‘Poor suckers,' he said.

‘The students, or the teachers?'

‘Either. I've seen prisons that were better equipped and more cheerful.'

‘At least they get to go home at the end of the day.'

He unlocked the passenger door for her, headed around to drive. ‘What do you think, Sonora?'

‘I think it's weirder than shit, Sam.'

‘What's weirder than shit?'

‘That Joelle hung out at the Kidgwick place where the Randolph boy was murdered, that she was fascinated by the case, and wound up buried there herself. You think it's fate or karma or something?'

‘No, hon, I think it sounds like the killer knew her very well.'

She looked at him. ‘Coming around to my way of thinking, are you?'

‘I'm getting there. Let's head up to that barn where you think the horse was sold. Follow that up once and for all. Here.' He handed her the journal. ‘Read to me on the way.'

‘I get car-sick, Sam, I'll throw up.'

‘Read fast and hang your head out the window.'

Chapter Forty-Seven

Sonora opened the window halfway. Good air circulation would give her more time to read before she got sick. She shivered. Definitely sweatshirt weather.

They passed an exit, and the BP Oils, Shell stations, McDonald's and Burger Kings gave way to pasture. She pictured herself riding Poppin, over the hill.

Sam glanced at her.

‘I'm reading already,' Sonora said. She opened the spiral-bound notebook, the front cover a picture of a cartoonish Cinderella wearing a blue ballgown that floated around her feet like a cloud.

…
I've been thinking about families a lot, what makes a family, and all that. Is it the blood and gene thing, is it living all together because you don't have a choice, is it all of the above? If this was a multiple choice test, I'd mark C, all of the above.

If I stir things up, Poppie could go to jail. I don't even like to think about that. Poppie in jail???? He couldn't take care of himself in a million years. Say it. He'd get raped. He'd have to be a wife or something to another prisoner, some big muscle guy, like a Nazi or something. I dreamed the other night that Poppie was sitting across from me at a table in one of those prison visiting rooms, and he was crying and saying he forgave me. If I tell I'll see that face for the rest of my life. And who am I going to tell?

A white Mazda 926 passed them. Sam, unconsciously, increased his speed. ‘Why'd you stop?'

Sonora swallowed. ‘I'm getting sick, Sam. What could she have find out that would put Chauncey in jail?'

‘Don't throw up yet. Keep reading, and then we can find out.'

She flipped pages. ‘There's not much more in here. This is a new notebook.'

‘Read.'

‘I'm skimming. There's a lot in here about Bryan.'

‘Don't read that part. Is this our exit?'

Sonora craned her neck. ‘I think so.'

‘No, it's not. Why am I asking you? You get lost in the bull-pen.'

‘Only once, and I wasn't lost, I just got turned around.'

‘Read.'

Sonora pushed the button and closed the window.

‘Keep the window open in case you need to throw up. If you're cold you can have my jacket.'

She had a jacket of her own and he knew it, but she took his anyway, because she just might throw up, so it was safer to wear his. It was an older one, scratchy but familiar, and she pulled it over her, inhaling the fragrance that was Sam. She knew his wardrobe almost as well as she knew her own. This was not his best-looking blazer, but it was the most familiar, and her favorite.

She laid her head against the glass, closed her eyes.

‘Read, Sonora.'

She flipped through more pages. Her stomach wasn't going to last much longer.

I talked to Poppie. I was worried about Mary Claire and Kippie, they have mothers somewhere, even if mine is dead, like he told me. I can't believe she's really dead. I'll never find her now. He says some time he'll take me to see her grave.

‘This doesn't make sense,' Sam said. ‘Why does she think they have different mothers? Didn't he tell us the mother died when Kippie was a baby, that she had breast cancer?'

‘I suppose you
could
explain it.'

‘Like how?'

‘That she was little when her mom died so he told her she went on a trip or something.'

‘Why lie about how she died?'

‘Breast cancer is scary.'

‘I don't buy it.'

‘Me either. What do you think is going on?'

‘Hell if I know. Anything else?'

‘Bryan, Bryan, Bryan. Let's see.' She flipped a page. ‘Bryan, Bryan … oh, here.'

If what Poppie says is true about Mary Claire and Kippie's mom, maybe I should leave it alone. It's kind of unbelievable, that he would rescue us like that. Like a litter of lost kittens. I told him
—

‘Told him what? This mother thing is bugging the hell out of me.' Sam looked at her. ‘You're chalk-white, Sonora. Want me to pull over?'

‘Fast.'

‘You awake, Sonora?'

Sonora slumped sideways, head against the door, feeling the cold air on her face. ‘I am now. Sorry about the jacket.'

‘It'll dry-clean. Want me to stop and get you something?'

‘Not unless it's a bullet to the brain.'

‘We're almost there.'

She chanced a quick look out the window. Lebanon, Ohio.

‘Watch for it, Sonora, Four Wishes Farm – it should be on our right.'

‘I'm not watching for anything.'

They passed a sign for Camp Swaneky and Fort Ancient. Camp Swaneky? Saw the Turtle Creek cemetery, and then they were past Lebanon and out into the countryside.

They passed a large new high school, a subdivision under construction, then a small sign painted red, shaped like an apple. Four Wishes Farm – owner/trainer/instructor, Barbara Adair.

‘Why an apple?' Sonora said.

‘You want an apple? Think it'll settle your stomach?'

‘No, Sam, just never mind.'

He gave her a questioning look, slowed the Taurus and bumped down the gravel road that led to a small, one-story white house, circa early sixties, and a big black barn with red doors – freshly painted.

‘Don't be cranky.'

‘I can be cranky if I want. I'm sick.'

An oval riding ring circled by a white fence, paint peeling, was in heavy use – six little girls, ranging in age from eight to thirteen, trotting their horses.

They wore black velvet helmets. Some had black, knee-high riding boots, and some wore boots that zipped along the side and covered the ankle. One wore tennis shoes and jeans, an aberration among the rest who wore Lycra riding pants and sweatshirts. The girls were posting, and they looked new at it, rising and falling in an awkward, exaggerated motion that had to be hard on a horse's back.

Sam pulled the car to the side of the road. Sonora got out, moving slowly. Her legs felt like jelly, but it was good to get out of the car.

‘Hello,' she said, trying to get the attention of the woman in the center of the ring. She had red hair, shoulder length, clasped back in a ponytail. She wore beige britches and knee-high black rubber boots, and a blue flannel shirt that hung down across the back of her pants.

She gave them a look, then went back to her barrage of instructions. ‘Shelby, you're balancing on the reins … Jan, get your heels down, think toes up … Kim go, go around – no, you pass to the inside, always.
Girls. Always, always
pass to the inside.'

Despite the constant corrections there was no observable change in the actions of the riders, who seemed to have their hands full, going round and round in a cloud of fine beige dust.

One of the horses coughed and dipped his head forward violently, pulling his small rider out of the saddle and up on his neck. She grabbed the horse's mane for dear life.

Sonora looked at the horses with a new eye. They were scrawnier than her own Poppin, ribs showing like washboards along their sides. Their heads were down, movements slow, with the exception of one gray who looked like he was going to take off and jump the fence at any moment. The little girl on his back had a wide-eyed look that begged for someone to let her get down.

Sonora contemplated saying something, then changed her mind.

Sam rested a hand on the fence. Lightly. It did not look like it could support much weight.

‘Excuse me, miss? We're looking for a Barbara Adair.'

The woman gave Sam a look that mingled disgust with surprise. She did not answer. ‘Kim, hold him tighter and
lean back
.'

Sonora nudged Sam. ‘Let's try the barn. Maybe there's an office.'

Sam nodded, headed for the barn just as a woman in bluejeans and roper boots led a solid black mare out of the building. The horse was dancing, head up, black saddle glistening with polish and oil.

The woman was tall. She put her left foot in the stirrup, bounced on her right toe three times and swung her leg over and into the saddle.