What Strange Creatures (8 page)

Spicer.
Kyle Spicer.

“No.” I tried to look casual. Oh,
God.
Maybe Zach could see the scene at Carpet World being replayed in the black of my dilating pupils. “But that sounds familiar, though. Jenny Spicer . . .”

“It was a pretty notorious case. Donald Wallace prosecuted it in the early nineties. A young girl was murdered. But the guy they convicted—they released him later. Like ten or so years later, I think. DNA evidence didn’t match him. Kim probably talked to your brother about it at least.”

“Um . . . I don’t know if she did or not. All I know is that she . . . uh, mentioned to Jeff that she had talked to
you
about her Donald Wallace thing.”

“What did she say about that?” Zach asked.

I thought about this for a moment. I’d already adjusted the truth just a bit—to avoid discussing the whole business with Kim’s phone.

“Nothing. She just mentioned that she called you,” I said.

“Yup.” Zach sighed and swiveled his chair gently. “She did. A few times, actually. I agreed to meet with her about it a few weeks back. But when I heard the details, I was reluctant to get involved. Clearly she’s passionate, but . . . but it’s an odd situation.”

Zach screwed his bottle closed and plunked it on his desk. I waited for him to elaborate, watching the bottle form a wet ring on the student paper beneath it.

“It’s sad to me, frankly,” Zach continued. “Obviously Kim has a serious issue with Wallace’s ethics. And good for her, calling that into question, if that’s what she really believes. But this idea she had for how to go about getting attention for the issue? Making a video? It struck me as wrongheaded.”

Wrongheaded.
That word never sits well with me. It always makes me think of
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Zach seemed to notice my face twitch when he said it.

“I mean, it felt like a wasted effort. How about writing a letter to the editor and leaving it at that?”

“Did you suggest that to Kim?”

“Yes. Of course. She said she’d do that once she had the video online.”

“And she thought this video of hers was simply gonna take off? And stall Wallace’s progress in the election?”

Zach shrugged and put his palms out. “That was the general idea.”

“And how were you supposed to help?”

“She wanted me to give it some press in the
Chronicle
—and in
Waltham’s,
even. Once she had it loaded up. That was part of it. The other part was . . . well, in my book, one of the kids I’d featured had a brush with Donald Wallace. She was sort of caught up on that, too. The kid’s story interested her. This kid named Dustin. Plus she thought that connection would raise
my
interest in her project, I guess.”

“Kim read your book?” I was impressed to hear this. She hadn’t struck me as much of a reader.

“Well. Part of it. My sense was that someone had shown that one section to her because of the vague connection to Wallace. But that may have been what brought her to my class originally. Reading part of the book.”

“Do you think there’s any chance this could’ve worked? Her project, I mean? With your help?”

“I doubt it. Surely Wallace could’ve countered with something from the other guy’s past. He’s not exactly an angel either.” Zach hesitated. “Now, I don’t know what your politics are. . . .”

“I don’t really have politics,” I admitted.

“Okay. Well. I recognize that Wallace is a career politician. With all career politicians, you’re gonna find some shady shit if you dig a little. It’s a cliché to say it, but I imagine that’s true of both candidates. I’d just as soon have Wallace win. We need that employment bill to pass.”

I was quiet. I didn’t know much about the employment bill. I wonder sometimes how these people can keep up with current affairs
and
their academics. Smart people exhaust me.

“Is that a terrible thing to say?”

“No, no,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t ask me to elaborate.

“I mean, the Jenny Spicer case is troubling, I understand . . . but I don’t think that’s entirely Wallace’s fault, by any means. And damn it, a Republican in that seat . . . oy.”

Zach rubbed the side of his face, then mushed his palm over his mouth and down his clean-shaven chin. “You should stop me. I’m digging myself into a hole. Ethics are ethics, and I should care. I
do
care. But I’m trying to explain why I didn’t want to get involved.”

“Do you think, for Kim, it was about the . . . uh . . . employment bill? About wanting a different outcome than you do? Wanting a Republican in that seat?”

Zach sighed and shook his head. He grabbed his water again, unscrewed the top, then screwed it closed without drinking. The metal made a soft
eek-eek-eek
sound.

“No. She mentioned to me that she usually votes Democrat, when she votes. Which I had a feeling was not all that often. She didn’t even seem to know what the employment bill was. But she was angry, regardless, that no one was giving the Spicer business much press in the election. For her it was very much about Wallace, and it was personal. She knew that little girl Jenny Spicer growing up. That was what it was about.”

“Oh. Jesus.”

Eek-eek.

“Didn’t I say that earlier?”

“No. . . . How terrible for her.”

“Oh. Yeah. She was a childhood friend of Jenny’s. When she was killed. I think Kim was a year or two older than Jenny.”

“You’d think she’d have appreciated Donald Wallace at the time.”

Zach shrugged. “At the time, maybe. I don’t know how much a kid could appreciate or understand the legal process under those circumstances. But in any case she has obvious reason
not
to admire him anymore. She may see his overzealous prosecution of . . . now, what was his name? The kid they convicted? Andrew something. She may see that as the reason they never got the
real
guy, see? I mean, if she’s going to be fair, she needs to blame the police, too.
All
of the adults in that neighborhood who wanted to pin it on some creepy teenager and be done with it. Not only Wallace.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

Eek. Eek. Eek.

“Look up Jenny Spicer. You’ll get a good sense of it.”

“Okay.”

Zach tipped his head back and drank, spilling water down his Charlie Brown zigzag. “Shit,” he muttered. “Hey. You know what else you might want to look at? Did your brother tell you about my class blog?”

“I think so. You had all the students post some of their assignments or something?”

“Yes. They all posted their responses to the memoir prompts on a class blog. I posted a few of my own, too.”

“Huh,” I said. My students never got anything like
this
from me either.

“I used to have them read one another’s pieces and comment on them. But I shut that part down after a while. It got nasty a few times. Those undergrads can be pretty ruthless.”

As Zach was saying this, my phone began to vibrate in my bag. I wrestled it out from under a Marge notebook tangled in a set of earbuds. Jeff’s cell number was on the screen.

“I’d better get this,” I said, jumping up and stepping into the English lounge.

“Hey there,” my brother said when I answered.

“How’re you doing?”

“Uhh . . . not great. I’m thinking of walking home.”

“Walking home from where, Jeff?”

“I don’t feel that great.”

“From where, Jeff? Should I come get you?”

“I’ve been talking to the police.”

“Is that where you are? The police department?”

“No. I’m in the bathroom.”

“The bathroom where?”

“Stewie’s.”

I put a finger up to indicate to Zach that I’d be right back. Then I hurried out to the hall.

“Stewie’s the bar?” I asked.

“We don’t
know
a Stewie, do we? Hey . . . that rhymed.”

“What happened at the police department?”

“They brought me in to answer a few questions. Something’s happened to Kim.”

“What? What’s happened?”

“They’re not sure, I guess. But her car’s been at this hotel for a few days, and they can’t find her.”

“Hotel where, Jeff?”

My question was interrupted by a groaning sound on Jeff’s end.

“I’m coming for you now!” I shouted into the phone.

I hung up and ran back to Zach’s office. As I grabbed my jacket, Zach pulled a Post-it off his desk and scribbled a Web address on it.

“Here’s where my memoir-class blog is up,” he said. “I’ve got it categorized by semester, since I keep it up for students to look at for inspiration. Your brother and Kim were last spring, I think. Right?”

“Yeah,” I said, taking the note from his fingers. “I’m sorry. I have to go. Thanks for chatting with me, though.”

“I thought maybe it would be interesting for you—to read what Kim wrote about Jenny Spicer. While you’re at it, you should read some of your brother’s stuff. It’s pretty good. . . . Hey, are you all right?” Zach asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “But I’ve
really
got to go.”

Once I’d cleared the English lounge, I ran out of Phillips Hall.

When I arrived at Stewie’s, Jeff was nowhere to be found. Thankfully, a guy I knew from high school was there, and he agreed to check out the men’s room for me. Jeff came out looking sickly but relatively steady.

“Hey, Theresa,” he said when he saw me. “Did I tell you I’m thinking of cutting the crew necks off all my T-shirts?”

I decided it best to drive him home, and he didn’t protest. On our way to his neighborhood, he told me more about his police visit.

“So you never called the police yourself. They came to you?” I asked.

“Right,” he said. “I mean, I did call her family. And they didn’t seem all that concerned. If they had been, I might’ve done things differently.”

I turned onto Amber Street, where Jeff lives in one of four apartment houses that the Whitlocks owned in town. They usually rented the apartments to older undergrads at the university. Likely Jeff was behind on his rent, but the Whitlocks probably were glad to have him around to keep his eye on things. He mowed the lawns for them and reported to them if any tenants were doing anything unsavory. At least they probably
assumed
that he did.

“So they told you she checked in to a hotel
where
?”

“In Rowington.”

Rowington was all the way on the eastern side of the state.

“What was she doing there?”

“I don’t know. They thought
I
might know. But she never checked out. She left all her stuff. Her clothes and everything. And they found her car a block or two down the road at a Denny’s.”

“Oh my God.”

I glanced over at Jeff, who closed his eyes.

“Is that where her sister lives?” I asked, unnerved by his quiet. “Rowington?”

“No. New Jersey, remember? They grew up in Fairchester. But her sister lives in New Jersey now.”

“Where’s Fairchester?”

“East. But not as east as Rowington. About an hour from here.”

I parked the car. “So she’d definitely lied to you about where she was going.”

Jeff stared at the front porch of the house. “I guess so.”

“So she left her
car
. . .”

“Her car and almost everything, she left. Her makeup case open on the bathroom counter at the hotel.”

“What about her purse and stuff?”

Jeff shook his head. “Well, I’ve got her phone. But it looks like she had her purse with her, wherever she went. I think she’d probably have had her laptop with her, too. ’Cuz she was always watching viral videos. That wasn’t in her room either. There wasn’t any sign of violence, though, they said. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense to skip out on your hotel bill and then leave your car. That’s not cost-effective. And the issue isn’t the bill. If it was only about the bill, the management just would’ve charged her credit card. When they found her room like that and no one came back, they were concerned that there might be some trouble. And then, when the police came, they made the connection with the abandoned car. The police down here are also investigating, since Kim’s from here. They talked to her roommate this morning, and she gave them my name.”

I wondered if Brittany used the word “alcoholic” when she spoke to the police.

“You’re quiet,” Jeff said.

“Let’s talk about it more upstairs,” I replied.

Jeff collapsed into a kitchen chair while I rummaged in his fridge for the makings of a halfway decent meal. To my surprise I found two packages of those nifty little crescent rolls that come in a can—a childhood favorite of Jeff’s. Plus there was some cheese and a few apples. I decided to make tea and lay all this stuff out on a plate for picking.

“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling the seal on the crescents and popping them open. “I’m sorry this is happening. I don’t know what else to say. Kim’s a sweet girl. And I hope she’s okay.”

Jeff and I were silent for a minute or two. I turned on his oven, found a cookie sheet, and started laying out the crescents.

“Remember . . .,” I began, thinking about how Jeff had loved these canned Pillsbury products when we were kids. He especially loved the yeasty way they smelled raw, right out of the can. One time he stole a raw biscuit and kept it in a Sucrets box so he could sniff at it as he went to sleep. When our mother found the rotting contents of the box under his pillow, she came pretty well unglued.

“Remember what?” Jeff asked, his voice so weary it came out more a sigh than a question.

“Nothing,” I said.

We didn’t speak as the rolls baked. When the timer went off, Jeff stood up and took them out of the oven.

“Eat in the living room?” he asked as I sliced the last of his cheddar cheese.

I shrugged yes and followed him in with the food.

Jeff clicked on
The Rachel Maddow Show.

“I’ve got a crush on her,” Jeff told me, turning up the TV as he nibbled an apple slice.

“Isn’t she a lesbian?” I asked.

Jeff put his apple slice on a napkin and set it on the arm of his couch. “It’s not that kind of crush.”

“Oh,” I said. I decided I didn’t need clarification. Maybe he was still a little drunker than I’d originally assessed. I gobbled a roll and tried to follow the pundits’ discussion about the budget crisis.