Authors: Charlie Price
JJ shook her head. Eyes on the floor now.
“You believe that?” Gary asked all of them.
Mick nodded.
Grace said, “I do.”
“Guess that only leaves one,” Gary said, turning to look down at Jon.
“Bullshit!” Jon yelled. “JJ said Cassel did it. I heard her, up on River Road.”
Mick was thinking about seeing Jon. Running with those other kids. And Jon would want to impress them. And some of them had older brothers and sisters who knew the Cassels.
“Who’d you tell?” Gary asked, gently pulling Jon to stand up.
“Nobody!” Jon said, starting to twist his arm against Gary’s grip.
“He told the kids he was playing with up by the drive-in last night,” Mick said. He knew it was true.
“Liar!” Jon screamed. He tore loose from Gary’s grip and flew toward the front door.
The kid surprised Mick. He thought he could grab him but missed. Jon crashed out and was gone.
“Guess that explains it,” Gary said. “You all want to help me hide some dope down by the river?”
Gary was busy collecting it from hidden compartments all over the trailer when Mick’s dad knocked on the door.
“You lose this?” he asked Gary. He had Jon by the wrist and Mick knew his father’s grip. Jon wasn’t struggling.
“Yeah,” Gary said. “You got anything you don’t want the law to see, you might want to get it out of your place pretty quick. And then, maybe you and I better make a plan.”
* * *
Part of the plan was Mick’s dad taking JJ and Jon for a long drive so they wouldn’t be around for questions if Scott Cassel showed up that evening. Mick knew JJ would be uncomfortable going in a car with his dad. His father made nice with her but JJ could read people. She told Mick, sorry, but she thought the man was missing something. Hollow. She didn’t trust him.
Mick could understand that, but at least Fitz had kept Mick. His mom hadn’t.
That evening, watching the three of them drive away, Mick knew that the way his dad had just dealt with Jon scared JJ. Jon had been squirming and refusing to leave. His dad said he needed to talk to Jon alone and pulled the kid inside their place. Mick stood by the car with JJ. When the man and the boy came out a minute later, Jon was quiet, wooden. Didn’t say a word when Mick’s dad opened the car door.
Jon’s eyes looked like he’d gotten soap in them, pink and irritated, and there was a trace of blood on his lips. He was more than scared, he looked stunned. Mick hadn’t seen the kid like that before. He’d never seen him give up or quit arguing so quickly. What did his dad do to produce that effect? Mick had an idea. His father had scared the daylights out of
him
a couple of times.
“You okay?” JJ asked the boy.
Jon didn’t look at her, didn’t move or answer.
Mick’s dad got in the car and cocked his head back to hear better. “What’s that?”
“Nothing,” JJ said. “Just thinking.”
“No harm in that,” the man said, putting the shift in drive, and they were gone.
32
M
ICK HAD TIME
ALONE
to ready himself for a visit from the law since his dad and the Stovall kids didn’t figure to be back until after midnight. His dad had moved the “broken” goods, weapons, and drugs somewhere, probably in a hidey-hole off a country road. Mick had seen his dad unearth these stashes in other towns when they had to flee in a hurry.
Lieutenant Cassel arrived after dark. Mick heard the cruiser roll into the lot. Heard the man bang on the Stovalls’ door. Saw Gary let him in. From his window Mick got a glimpse of Tina sitting upright on the couch.
Cassel knocked on Mick’s wall a half hour later. The officer was big enough to fill the door and his face was red like he’d scraped it shaving. Mick smelled Right Guard and leather and tobacco.
“You’re…” Cassel consulted a small spiral notepad he was carrying in his left hand. His gun was on the right side. “Fisthugh?”
“Fitzhugh,” Mick said. “Mickey Fitzhugh.”
“You got a big mouth,” the man said, raising his eyes to meet Mick’s. “Tell me what you did to the girl.”
Gary had coached them.
“Never answer more than he asks. Say as little as possible. Be polite. Look him in the eye. Don’t look away when you’re lying. If he gets nasty with you, take it. He’s just trying to scare you into a mistake. Broken-record your story: Don’t know the girl, swimming under the highway bridge yesterday, didn’t hear about anything till you went to Skinny’s last night, worked today. He asks who you were with, say Grace. Leave JJ and Jon out.”
“What girl?”
“You going to be smart with me?”
“No, sir.”
Silence.
He took a couple of steps closer. “Live here alone?”
“No, sir. My dad’s the mechanic up at the Conoco.” Was that saying too much?
“Where’s he?”
“I don’t know. He sometimes plays cards over in Belknap.”
“Upstairs? At the store?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did the girl tease you?” he asked. “Make you mad? Was it an accident?”
Mick couldn’t think what to say that would back Cassel off.
“Do you understand English, boy?” Cassel took another step closer.
Behind him, at the door, Gary’s voice. “Hey, Mick, you done yet? We’re ready for that burger.”
Cassel didn’t move, but his face got redder. “Have you been telling people Tim’s involved in this?” He asked that in a soft voice, but he looked angry enough to snap Mick’s neck.
“No, sir. I don’t know Tim.”
“Tim says you do.”
“I mean yeah, I know who he is. That he’s your son. I’ve never talked to him. He, uh…” Mick had been going to say that Tim and his friend were here today threatening, but Gary’s earlier warning stopped him. Did Cassel know that? Could you get in trouble for carrying a concealed putter? Did Tim tell about Mick hitting him at school? “Tim is in the class ahead of me.”
Gary, outside, broke in again. “Well, take your time. Grace and I’ll just wait on your porch. No hurry.” You could hear wood scraping as Gary moved something near the door, probably a box to sit on.
Cassel’s eyes looked narrower for a second and then he seemed to ease up. He pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket and flipped to a new page in his notebook. “Mickey Fitzhugh,” he said, writing carefully on the lined pages like it was some kind of legal document. “Phone?”
“Don’t have a phone, sir,” Mick said.
Cassel’s eyes shot up again, assessing if the boy was fooling with him. He looked around the room. Shook his head. He walked to the side area past the beds and pulled back the curtain, exposing the toilet cubicle. Shook his head again. His eyes traced the perimeter of the room. Looking for a phone line? He saw the cooler by the kitchen table. Opened it. Lifted out a soggy package of bologna.
“Nice,” he said, dropping it back in, leaving the lid on the floor. “Father’s name?” He was moving slowly toward the door, looking at the walls and furnishings like he was memorizing the place.
“Fitz Fitzhugh,” Mick said.
“First name!” Irritated.
“Tighe,” Mick said.
Cassel gave him a long look. He didn’t write down what Mick had said. “We need to have a talk at my office, son, sometime soon. A little more privacy. Sort out some of these details. Tell your father to come find me.”
Mick expected Cassel to slam the door, but he didn’t. He left quietly. The next sound Mick heard was the cruiser starting. Mick took a deep breath but it didn’t do any good.
* * *
Gary and Grace came in and sat on the bed while Mick replaced the cooler lid.
“Sweet man,” Gary said.
Grace was pulling at a strand of hair. Her foot was tapping. Second time in two days Mick had seen her shook-up.
“Think it might be a good idea for you all to take a little summer trip for a few weeks before school starts,” Gary said, staring out the window at the dark parking area. “Tina’s got a half sister in Spokane. I got family in Boise.” He sighed. “We need a car.”
Grace closed her eyes. Mick thought he knew what she was thinking: have to leave to save herself. Dollars to doughnuts she got here by running away from home.
Gary noticed. “You don’t have to go,” he said, turning toward her. “We just got to keep JJ and Jon away from Cassel and his spawn. Mick can drive them.”
Grace raised her head and gave him a look. “Right. And who’s going to take care of Jon? He’ll leave JJ at the gate and Mick would have to kill him to get him to mind.”
Mick wanted to say that she wasn’t doing too well with Jon, as far as he could see, unless fighting and losing was what she considered getting him to mind.
“I bet JJ and Mick could handle him,” Gary said. “Send the meds along, and I got a little mad money stashed to keep them in food and a motel once in a while.”
“That’s the sad part,” Grace said, holding Gary’s eyes. “Jon’s your kid and you don’t even get him. He’s so out of control. If Mick’s dad hadn’t grabbed him this afternoon, Jon’d be up in town right now telling more people that JJ said Cassel did the girl. He’ll trash anybody, Gary. He doesn’t care.”
“Ah, hell, he’s mostly mad at his mom. If he was away from her he’d settle down. Let’s see what Fitz says when he gets back.” Gary got up. “Come on, we’ll go get that double-cheese just in case whatsit is parked up there to check out my story.”
Grace stayed put. “You go,” she said. “I want time by myself.”
Mick didn’t think Grace’d be there when they got back. He figured she was getting ready to find a new town.
33
M
ICK AND
G
ARY
got back from Skinny’s long before his dad came back with JJ and Jon. The first thing Mick did was look for Grace. Gary opened the trailer door and Mick barged in, pinching his nose against the stink. He didn’t see her. Not back in her bedroom or in Gary’s, where Tina was snoring. He was down the steps running too fast to catch whatever Gary said. Checked his own place. Not there either. Outside again, Mick hustled to the Chevy. Walked around it. Gave up. She was already gone.
Gary was leaning on the railing of his small wood porch. “I said her clothes are still here.”
That clicked something. Pretty sure she wouldn’t leave without them. They’d just been up on Main Street, so she wasn’t up there. Starlight let him see most of the crannies in the parking area. Scanning east, Dovey’s trailer. To the south, he could make out the sage, scrub, the willows … he started running again. Found her sitting at the edge of the river. Crying.
She stopped when Mick knelt beside her. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. The water filled the silence, the fast rush of current in the middle, the trickle over shallows by the bank. Across the river he could see bats darting and skimming, harvesting insects. Above them, torn clouds hesitated near a glob of moon while a jetliner glided west, barely more than a flashing dot.
Mick knew what he wanted to say.
“I love you. I’ll protect you.”
But he’d be the first to admit he didn’t know what those words meant. Though she was only a grade above him, somehow she was years older than he was. She knew it, and he knew it, and love like he yearned for was out of the question. And if he ever said such a thing she’d split him open with a laugh or hit him. So what was there to say?
“I won’t let Cassel hurt you”
? She’d been hurt before. Mick would bet on it. And Putter Boy was going to defend her? Not very damn likely. And just like that, Mick had a plan.
“You know how Dad took JJ and Jon for a ride tonight to keep them away from Cassel and his questions? Listen. Dad and I move all the time.”
He thought she was hearing him but he wasn’t sure. She didn’t stir or acknowledge his words.
“Hey. We could take them and just move again. Go someplace else. Denver, or Salt Lake. Big towns where no one knows anybody. Dad can get work and school hasn’t even started. They can stay with us and then, when things settle down, they can come back home.”
At the word “home,” Grace shot a look at him. Okay. He had her attention.
“Dad can handle Jon. Fitz can be a scary guy when he wants to be. And JJ’d be okay. She’d probably be okay anywhere. You know. It’d probably even be good for them to be away from that trailer for a while. Away from Tina. And Jon and I could do things together like brothers.”
Mick heard himself. Heard himself give away everything he’d wanted about staying here and settling. Wasn’t this real love? And he would do it. Do it for Grace.
He waited, but she didn’t speak or look at him again. “We could even go tonight, I’ll bet, tomorrow at the latest. Hit the road. Make it safe for everybody else.”
Grace stood so quickly, she startled him.
“Mickey.” She was breathing hard like she’d left off crying and gotten angry sometime in the last couple of minutes. “Don’t you get it? We may all have to leave!” She ran her fingers through her hair. Exasperated. “Damn it!” she groaned, and pounded her fists against her legs. “Cassel will bust Gary for dope, take the kids away from Tina. He could send me … He could pin the Evelyn thing on you. We’re screwed. The asswipe universe screwed us and we have to get out of here. I have to. Probably all of us!”
She left him standing there. Wondering. “The Evelyn thing.” Could they pin it on him? Was that even possible?
34
JJ
HATED BEING TRAPPED
in the car with Mick’s dad. She saw him pop a couple of pills as they drove off. More, she could tell he had badly frightened Jon and that wasn’t easy to do. The man seemed so hair-trigger. Best JJ could do was keep her mouth shut and watch, wait for this trip to be over.
Mr. Fitzhugh made a big circle: Noxon to Troy, where they ate some bad pizza, then east through Libby to Logan State Park before finally turning south to follow Salish River Road home. He’d told her that route would take several hours, keep them out of Cassel’s path. He traveled the speed limit, kept the windows down, and listened to country music on the radio.
JJ wondered if Gary or Tina had given Jon something so strong it kept him nearly comatose. He’d hardly eaten any pizza and slept the whole time in the car. A couple of years ago they’d done that same kind of thing with her until they got in trouble when JJ developed double pneumonia after a week of being given doses of Tina’s vodka to “fight her cold.” The hospital initiated an abuse investigation but found no other specific evidence that would remove JJ from her aunt’s custody. Since then, JJ wouldn’t let Gary or Tina give her any drink or medicine that didn’t come from a pharmacy. But Jon? They could have slipped him anything. Come to think of it, JJ wondered if Mick’s dad had given Jon something. Besides a heavy dose of fear.