What Strange Creatures (30 page)

“Right. How much did you drink the night you followed Kim to Rowington?”

“I can’t really remember. I drank Jack and ginger ale in the car when I got to the hotel. I felt like I needed a little something to build up the courage to confront her and whoever she was meeting there. I was sure it would be Kyle. But no one came.”

“And you kept drinking.”

“Till I fell asleep,” Jeff admitted.

“How long were you asleep?”

“I don’t know. It was daylight when I first woke up.”

“You told me it was like five.”

“I’m not sure, Theresa.” Jeff took off his seat belt and reached into the backseat to pet the sleeping Wayne.

“You probably should try not to drink too much while you’re out on bail,” I offered.

Jeff turned back to me. “You’re funny, Theresa.”

“Funny?” I repeated. How did he go from “try not to drink too much” to “funny”?

“You’re funny if you think drinking is the main temptation now. My main problem now.”

I finally passed the truck. In front of it, there was a clear expanse of highway without any other cars. Everyone who was in a hurry had passed us by.

I started thinking about Jeff “preparing” my dad for the possibility that the DNA under Kim’s fingernails would be his. It occurred to me that he was perhaps preparing me, too. Maybe something had happened between him and Kim that night—something he was now trying to distance himself from by reminding me that alcohol was in the mix. Maybe he thought this would make it easier on me somehow. Or easier on himself.

“There’s nothing more depressing than a New England highway this time of year,” I said, to stop this train of thought.

“Nothing?” Jeff replied dully. He clearly didn’t want a response.

Because, I thought, you could still remember the vibrant color that was there just a few weeks before. And you asked yourself,
Where the hell was I for that? How come I didn’t swallow it, make it a part of myself, somehow save that color for now? And now how will I survive till spring?

It wasn’t merely about surviving till spring this year, though. This spring might be terrifying. Spring could bring Jeff’s trial, even Jeff’s conviction. Spring might bring beautiful mornings full of blue skies and crocuses that Jeff would never get to see. And spring might become for Jeff something pat and plastic—like a candle description, supplied to him by his sister during Saturday visiting hours.

Once we were parked at Shaw’s, I asked Jeff if he wanted any groceries.

“I’ll look and feel a lot less conspicuous if I actually have something to buy,” I explained.

“Twix,” Jeff said. “I was craving one the other day in the clink. And get Detective Dog here some Milk Bones or something. Now, remind me who this Troy kid is?”

“A friend of Dustin Halliday’s,” I said.

Jeff responded with a lethargic nod. I tried not to let his boredom bother me.

Inside, I asked for Troy Richardson at Customer Service. The cool, slick-haired girl behind the counter seemed unsurprised by the question and led me to a tall young man with dreadlocks.

“Here he is,” she said. “Mr. Troy. Best damn bagger in the business.”

Troy rolled his eyes at the girl.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked, after she had walked away.

“My name’s Margery Lipinski. I’m a friend of your old teacher, Sharon Silverstein.”

“Oh. Ms. S? How’s she doing?”

“Pretty good. Um. We both became concerned about Dustin Halliday recently, and I was wondering if you could help.”

“Uh-huh. Well, he used to live with me. I’m concerned about him, too.”

“So he doesn’t live with you anymore?”

“No. Not for a couple of weeks.” He turned to the customer whose groceries he’d been packing and said, “There are your eggs, sir.”

“Do you know where he went?” I asked.

Troy started packing his next customer’s endless tins of cat food. “He’s staying with his brother.”

His brother. The brother who’d told me just a few days ago he hadn’t heard from Dustin in months?

“Trenton?” I said.

Troy looked up, apparently surprised I was so well informed as to know Dustin’s brother’s name. “Yeah,” he said. “How did you say you know Dustin?”

Either Troy or Trenton was lying.

“It’s complicated,” I said, then added my own lie to the mix: “I was his teacher at one point, too.”

Troy pushed a piece of hair out of his eyes. “I don’t remember you.”

“His teacher from a long time ago. Before he got in trouble. We go back a while.”

Troy frowned. “Oh. Um, why don’t we talk outside for a second?”

I agreed and followed him out of the store’s sliding glass doors. Once we were outside, Troy leaned against a wall of shopping carts.

“Dustin’s not in great shape, Ms. . . . ?”

“Lipinski.”

“Ms. Lipinski. He’s been kinda . . . uh, crashing and burning for a few weeks now. He got beat up and mugged a couple of weeks ago, outside that Farley’s bar. Know the place?”

I nodded, just to make things easier.

“Then, a few days ago, he took a bunch of some kind of Oxy pills or something. Me and the guys finally called his brother and asked him to help us. He was real upset when this new friend of his died, this girl . . .”

“Kim?” I offered.

“Yeah. Kim.” Troy rubbed his arms for warmth. He had only a thin sweater beneath his bagger smock. “So you know about her?”

“Yes. He told me a little about her. Did you ever meet her?”

“She came to the house a couple times. I don’t know if they were, like, together or anything, though. She wanted to meet him ’cuz she read about him in that juvie book. His first groupie. You know about that book?”

“Yeah, I do. So what do you know about Kim?”

Troy looked at the pavement. “I didn’t really like her, I’ve got to admit. I know I shouldn’t say that now, but . . . I didn’t like how Dustin was being with her.”

“How’s that?”

“I don’t know how well you know Dustin, how well you know his whole story. He really needs to forget all that shit that happened with his parents and move on. But any excuse he had to dwell on that story, that night, he’d take it. And that Kim, she was quite an excuse. He said she was videotaping him talking about it or some shit like that? Like she was gonna get him all over the Internet talking about how wrong they all had it? Like the first fifteen minutes he got weren’t painful enough? Or the second, with that stupid book? He wanted fifteen
more
?”

A young man who’d been corralling shopping carts came up and slammed a bunch of them into the collection already behind me. He and Troy exchanged private little waves. Kids that age always make me self-conscious, harking back to my Comp-teaching days. I always felt like they were secretly laughing at me—for what I don’t know.

“So you didn’t like Kim because she was encouraging him to dwell on the past?” I asked once the cart kid had drifted back into the parking lot.

Troy shrugged. “Listen. Normally it would be none of my business, how much someone wants to feel sorry for themselves over some trauma like that. But that girl doesn’t understand that with Dustin, asking him about his parents is like creating a monster. A monster no one else around him can stand.”

“Can you explain that a little bit? Give an example?”

“An example.” Troy rubbed his hands together, then shoved them into the front pouch of his smock. “Well . . . that shit about the intruders the night his mother shot his father? They’re black and white one day, two black dudes another, two white ones another. Once it was a Hispanic guy and an Asian. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday it was a man in a chef’s hat and an Indian chief. Seriously.”

“So you’re a good friend of his—and you don’t believe his story about those intruders?”

“It’s
because
I’m a good friend of his that I don’t believe it. Anyone who knows him well doesn’t believe it.”

I tried not to look too perplexed by this statement. “Then do you ever ask him what happened? So he can talk about it for real?”

“He doesn’t want to talk about it for real.” Troy rubbed his nose and sniffled, regarding me skeptically. “I don’t know how well you know him if you don’t know that.”

I did my best to maintain an even, teacherly composure and redirect. “Well . . . what about in the book—did you read the book he was in?”

“Parts of it.” Troy shrugged again. “Dustin had it. Although I don’t know if he read it himself. He just liked that his name was in it. He kind of likes . . . drama, don’t you think?”

“Sometimes, yes. I’ve noticed that. So in the book, when he said that there’s only one person he told everything about that night?”

“I don’t remember that part too well,” Troy said. “Was that part of that whole thing about his little white friend?”

“Yes.”

Troy shook his head. “Yeah, that was bullshit. Dustin made out like that kid was his only friend ’cuz there weren’t many white kids. Just drama, like I said. I was pretty close to Dustin, and I don’t even remember that kid.”

“Were you and Dustin in detention at exactly the same time?”

“No.” He lowered his voice. I realized he probably didn’t want me talking too loudly about that time of his life. “He was there much longer than me, that’s true.”

“Were you interviewed for the book at all?”

“No. That writer asked me, but I said no. It didn’t interest me. But that sure as hell interested Dustin. A chance to get back in the spotlight.”

“It seems like you’re pretty frustrated with him.”

“Look. I’m not trying to talk bad about him. He’s the nicest guy when he can, you know, focus on the right things. That’s why I took a chance and suggested he try living with me. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t think he could pull himself together.”

“Okay,” I said.

Troy noticed my tentative response. Probably a blank look had crossed my face as I struggled to come up with another question.

“I really ought to get back to work,” he said.

“Of course,” I said. “But before you go . . . do you have any idea where Trenton Halliday lives?”

Troy didn’t have the house number, but he’d said it was the only light blue house, he was pretty sure, on Hammond Avenue. Hammond was crowded full of big houses with tiny yards, but Troy had been right about there being only one painted pale blue. My view of the front porch was almost entirely obscured by an overgrown hedge.

“Unfortunately, that’ll keep you from being able to see me,” I said to Jeff. “In case there’s any trouble.”

“Are you expecting any trouble?” asked Jeff, leaning into a kiss from Wayne, who was sitting on his lap in the passenger seat.

“Should I bring Wayne with me, you think?”

“If it’s for personal protection, I’d say no. Wayne’s not great in a crisis. If it’s to make you look eccentric and nonthreatening, go for it. As long as you accept that that can backfire.”

I looked at Wayne, who had his front paws mushed into Jeff’s lap. He pawed Jeff’s chest, digging for more biscuits. Jeff had already given him three in the fifteen-minute trip from Shaw’s.

“He has a weight problem, remember,” I said.

“This is a special occasion,” Jeff said. “But okay. I’ll make him work for the next one.”

“I’ll go by myself,” I mumbled, and got out of the car.

There were three different doorbells on the porch, but they were marked with weather-faded cardboard labels. None of them was fully legible, but I could see that the second-floor card ended with
DAY.
I pressed it resolutely, impressed with my own sleuthing.

I deflated a bit, however, when a young woman answered the door. She was unhealthily bronzed but still ridiculously pretty and wearing a black-and-white polka-dotted head wrap.

“Hi there,” I said. “Is Dustin here?”

The girl squinted at me. “You want . . .
Dustin
?”

“Who’s that?” a man’s voice demanded from behind the door.

“Oh,” I said cheerily. “Is that him?”

“Um. No. It’s—”

The door swung open, and a burly guy with thick glasses appeared. He nudged the young woman aside with his elbow, stepped onto the porch, and closed the door behind him.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

“I was told Dustin was staying here. Are you Trenton?”

“Who told you that?”

“His friend Troy.”

“Well, he’s not here, I’m afraid. Who are you?”

“My name’s Margery. I believe we exchanged e-mails and a text.”

“Oh. Yes.” Trenton touched his hand to his chin. He had one of those circle beards, where the mustache meets the beard and forms a trim frame around the mouth.

“So he’s not here?” I said, trying to tame the skepticism in my voice.

“No. I haven’t seen him in several months. Like I said in my text.”

I nodded slowly, uncertain where to go from here. I didn’t think Troy would have much reason to lie to me, but I wasn’t sure how to call Trenton’s bluff.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” Trenton added. He turned and put his hand on the doorknob. “We were just getting ready to go out for some dinner. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll let you go, then,” I said reluctantly.

“Bye now,” he said, and entered the house.

Back in my car, I stared up at the house. “Out for dinner, my ass,” I said. “I bet if we sat here for an hour, nobody would come out.”

“But since we’re not gonna sit here for an hour,” Jeff mumbled, “I guess we’ll never know.”

“I think he’s lying to me, though.”

“Why would he lie to you?” Jeff asked.

“Because he doesn’t want me to talk to his brother.” I glanced up at the windows, wondering if anyone was looking back at me from behind the blinds.

“Why not, do you think?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll bet Dustin’s in there.”

“Doing
what,
Theresa?” Jeff sounded impatient.

“Hiding, probably.”

Jeff pulled a biscuit out of the Milk Bone box and snapped a piece off with his teeth. “The pink tastes the same as the brown,” he said.

I sighed. “I know.”

Maybe he didn’t remember, but we’d test-tasted all the flavors back in the Jedi days.

“I want to go home, Theresa.”

Said the man who’d spent four nights in jail. I had to honor the request.