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But then, just to be safe, he knocks on wood.
11
Pat Grady shows up on time for work every day of the following week. Danny dares to hope Pat’s learned his lesson, but he’ll never be the worker Jesse Jackson is. As the oldtimers used to say, that young man knows how to squat and lean.
Meanwhile, information about Danny’s dream girl begins to accrete. Although not named, she’s reported to be twenty-four and a resident of Oklahoma City. According to a friend, this unnamed girl had had enough of both her parents and community college and intended to hitchhike out to Los Angeles and go to hairdressing school, maybe get work as an extra in the movies or TV shows. She made it as far as Kansas. The body had been there for awhile—KHP detectives weren’t saying how long, but long enough to be “badly decomposed.”
Dog might have had something to do with that, Danny thinks.
She had been “repeatedly stabbed,” according to a police source. Also sexually assaulted, which was a semi-polite way of saying raped.
It was the end of the Thursday night story on the local news that made Danny uncomfortable. The stand-up reporter was older than the weekend woman, male, obviously part of the A Team. He was standing in front of the gas station, where the tarmac was blocked with yellow police tape. “Kansas Bureau of Investigation detectives are actively seeking the man who phoned in the original tip giving the location of the body. If anyone knows his identity, detectives hope they will come forward. Or if anyone recognizes his voice. Listen.”
The screen showed the sort of silhouette some people used to hide their faces on social media. Then Danny heard his own voice. It was awesomely clear, hardly distorted at all: The body’s located behind an abandoned Texaco station in the town of Gunnel… County Road F, about three miles in from the highway. Behind the Texaco station. Get her out of there. Please. Someone’ll be missing her.
He was starting to wish he’d left well enough alone. Except when he thought of that chewed hand and forearm sticking out of the ground, he knew there was nothing well enough about it. He snapped off the television and spoke to the empty trailer. “What I really wish is I’d never had that fucking dream.” He paused, then added: “And I hope I never have another one.”
12
On Friday afternoon Danny is using a longneck mop to clean the tops of the hanging fluorescents in the main office when a dark blue sedan pulls into the faculty parking lot. A woman in a white shirt and blue slacks gets out from behind the wheel. She hangs a satchel-sized purse over one shoulder. A man in a black sportcoat and saggy-ass dad jeans gets out from the passenger side. Danny takes one look at them as they walk toward the high school’s front doors and thinks, I’m caught.
He leans the mop in the corner and goes to meet them. The only thing that surprises him about this arrival is his lack of surprise. It’s as if he was expecting it.
He can hear faint rock music playing through the speakers in the gym. Jesse and Pat are down there, cleaning up the crap that always appears when the bleachers are rolled back and collapsed against the walls. The plan is to revarnish the hardwood next week, a job that always gives Danny a headache. Now he wonders if he’ll even be here next week. Telling himself that’s ridiculous, telling himself that he’s done nothing wrong, doesn’t help much. The catchphrase from some old sitcom comes to him: You got some ’splainin to do.
The woman opens the outside door and holds it for the man. Danny leaves the office and walks down the front hall. The newcomers are in the lobby, standing by the trophy case with the blue and gold WILDCAT PRIDE banner above it. The woman looks to be in her thirties, dark hair pulled back in a tight bun. She’s got a pistol on the left side of her belt, the butt turned outward. On the right side is a badge. It’s blue and yellow with the letters KBI in the middle. She’s good-looking in a severe way, but it’s the man who draws Danny’s attention, although he can’t initially say why. Later it will occur to him that you instinctively recognize a nemesis when one appears in your life. He’ll try to dismiss the idea as bullshit, but he’s clear on what went through his mind, even as he approached them: Watch out for this guy.
The male half of the team is older than the woman, but how much is a question. Danny is usually good at guessing ages within a few years one way or the other, but he can’t get a handle on this guy. He could be forty-five. He could be pushing retirement. He could be sick, or just tired. A peninsula of coarse, wavy hair in which red and gray are equally mixed comes down almost to the top line on his forehead. It’s combed back into what looks to Danny like a jumbo widow’s peak. His skull gleams creamy unblemished white on either side of it. His eyes are dark and deepset with bags beneath. The black sportcoat is fading at the elbows, like it’s been dry-cleaned dozens of times. He also has a KBI badge on his belt, but isn’t carrying a gun. If he were, Danny thinks the weight of it might pull those dad jeans right down to his ankles, exposing a pair of billowy old-fella boxers. He has no belly in front, no hips on the sides, and if he turned around, Danny thinks those jeans would sag on a no-ass that is the particular property of so many skinny-built white men from the Midwest. All he’s lacking is a Skoal pouch pushing out his lower lip.
The cop steps forward, holding out his hand. “Daniel Coughlin? I’m Inspector Franklin Jalbert, Kansas Bureau of Investigation. This is my partner, Inspector Ella Davis.”
Jalbert’s hand is hard and his grip is hot, almost as if he’s running a fever. Danny gives it a token shake and lets go. The woman doesn’t offer her hand, just gives him an assessing stare. It’s as if she can already see him doing that sad dance known as the perp walk, but this doesn’t bother Danny the way Jalbert’s gaze does. There’s something dusty about it, as if he’s seen versions of Danny a thousand times before.
“Do you know why we’re here?” Ella Davis asks.
Danny recognizes the sort of question—like asking a guy if he’s still beating his wife—to which there’s no right answer. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Before either of them can reply, the door at the end of the old wing screeks open and booms shut. It’s Jesse. “We finished sweeping where the bleachers were, Danny. You should have seen all the—” He sees the man in the fading black sportcoat and the woman in the blue pants and stops.
“Jesse, why don’t you—”
The door screeks and booms again before Danny can finish. This time it’s Pat, jeans low-riding, hat turned around backward, totally down widdit. He stands just behind Jesse, looking at Danny’s company with his head cocked to one side. He sees the woman’s gun, he clocks the badges, and a slight smile starts to form.
Danny tries again. “Why don’t you two get an early start on the weekend? I’ll punch you out at four.”
“For reals?” Pat asks.
Jesse asks if he’s sure. Pat gives him a don’t fuck this up thump on the shoulder. He’s still smiling, and not because the weekend’s starting an hour early. He likes the idea that his boss might be in trouble with the po-po.
“I’m sure. If you left any of your stuff in the supply room, pick it up on your way out.”
They leave. Jesse throws a quick look over his shoulder, and Danny is touched by the concern he sees in it. When the door booms shut, he turns back to Jalbert and Davis and repeats his question. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Davis skirts that. “We just have a few questions for you, Mr. Coughlin. Why don’t you take a little ride with us? The Manitou PD has kindly set aside their break room for us. We can be there in twenty.”
Danny shakes his head. “I promised those young men I’d punch them out at four. Let’s talk in the library.”
Ella Davis shoots a quick look at Jalbert, who shrugs and gives a smile that momentarily exposes teeth that are white—so no Skoal, Danny thinks—but so small they’re no more than pegs. He grinds them, Danny thinks. That’s what does that.
