“I went through a stop sign. Okay, not really. I mean, I didn’t run it, you know? I did one of those rolling stops. I almost stopped. But there was this Griffon cop sitting there, and he hits the siren and pulls me over.” He shook his head in disgust. “You know what they’re like in this town. Any little thing, especially if you’re my age, or you’re from out of town, or if you’re like Dennis and your skin’s not exactly as white as everyone else’s.”
Adam had briefly closed his eyes. Maybe he thought if he closed them hard enough, when he opened them once again we’d all be gone.
“And they had me sitting there forever while they ran the plates and checked my license, but it’s totally clean, right? So when the cop finally came back he just gave me a warning to always come to a dead stop.”
“No ticket?” his mother said.
“That’s right,” her boy said, and smiled, grateful that there was at least one thing that had turned out right.
It also helped me fit one piece into the puzzle. That was why he wasn’t able to get to Patchett’s to pick up Claire and drive her to Iggy’s, where Hanna was waiting.
“Did you make a phone call while you were waiting for the police to run your license?” I asked.
He looked surprised. “Yeah.”
“To tell someone you were going to be late, or weren’t going to make it at all?”
I could see it in his eyes, that he was figuring it out now, too. That I was the fill-in. He’d called Claire to say he was held up, and she’d told him she’d try to hitch a ride.
“I don’t understand what’s going on at all,” Sheila said. “What are you two talking about?”
“What’d you do then, Sean?” I asked.
“I didn’t — I didn’t really know what to do. But wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“A phone call, I guess. To let me know things went... okay.”
Sheila interrupted again. “I still don’t—”
I held my hand up to silence her. We were finally getting somewhere.
“Did you get a call?” I asked.
Now a tear ran down his cheek. “Yeah,” he nodded.
“Who called you?”
“Hanna.”
“What did she say?”
“She was talking real fast. She said things kind of got fu—” He glanced at his father. “Things got kind of messed up, but it sort of went okay, that they did the switch, but she was all kind of freaked out.”
“Switch?” Adam said. I held up my hand again.
“What do you mean, freaked out?” I asked.
“She said she just jumped out of some guy’s car, and it was raining, and she was soaked, and she needed a ride, and she was really upset.”
“You said the last time you’d seen her was earlier. But didn’t you go and pick her up then? The police were done with you by then, right?”
“Yeah, and I was going to pick her up. She was about to tell me where she was, and then she says — and don’t be angry, Dad, because this is exactly what she said to me — she says, ‘Shit, they’re here.’”
“Who’s ‘they’? The same ones Claire was trying to lose?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’d Hanna say then?”
“She didn’t say anything. The call just ended. And I never got to know where she’d been dropped off.”
I knew.
Nineteen
“Sean and I have to go out,” I told the Skillings.
“What for?” his mother said as we all got to our feet.
“We’re going to see if we can find Hanna, aren’t we, Sean?” I said to him.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“I don’t know about this,” his father said.
“I very much appreciate your son’s cooperation, and yours,” I said. “In consideration of that, I’m inclined to let that other matter slide.”
The parents contemplated my words. Sheila spoke first. “You help this man any way you can, Sean.”
“Yeah,” Adam said. “You do that.”
As their son and I moved toward the door, Sheila said, “Don’t be too late, now.” Like we were heading out to catch a movie.
Once outside, I said, “I’m parked around the corner.” We walked the short distance in silence. I hit the remote to unlock the doors and the two of us got into the Honda.
“Where are we going?” he asked as he reached over his shoulder for the seat belt.
“I was the one who gave Claire a ride last night,” I said. “When you didn’t show up at Patchett’s.”
“I figured that, but why would she have called you?”
“She didn’t. I was in the right place at the right time.” Or the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how you looked at it. “I was driving by, stopped at the light. Claire’d been standing there, waiting for you, and when you called and said you couldn’t make it, she tapped on my window to ask for a ride. I was going to say no, but she recognized me, said she knew Scott. So I said okay.”
“If I hadn’t got pulled over,” Sean said, “I’d have been there. Stupid cop was jerking me around for no reason.”
I keyed the ignition, turned around, gave it some gas. “Yeah. So let me guess how it went. You gave Claire a lift to Patchett’s. Then you picked Hanna up and took her to Iggy’s so she could wait for Claire.”
“Yeah. We figured no one would follow me after I dropped Claire off. They’d hang back at Patchett’s.”
“Okay. Then, after you dropped Hanna off, you were to go back and get Claire, drive her to Iggy’s. They do the switch, and Hanna, wearing that wig, gets in your car looking like Claire. How’m I doing?”
“Good,” he said, looking straight ahead.
“Hanna had me fooled for about one minute, but I guess that was okay, because I wasn’t the one she had to trick. So here’s what I’m wondering, Sean.”
He glanced over.
“Who’s following Claire that she’d go to that much trouble to get away from him? And who picked her up after Hanna took her place?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“Really, man, I don’t know what the fuck it’s all about.” His dad wasn’t here now to slap him upside the head, and I wasn’t going to do it. I was tempted, but not over his foul language.
“You just agreed to help out without knowing a thing?”
“Claire didn’t talk to me about it. She and I, we haven’t been getting along as well as we used to since she dumped my friend—”
He cut himself off.
“Your friend?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got a friend she used to go out with, but then she started seeing this other guy.”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“This friend the same one who clunked me in the head?”
Sean shot me a cautious look. “He didn’t mean to hurt you or anything. He thought you were coming after me. He was just trying to protect me.”
“Okay,” I said. “You want me to go back, ask your parents who, out of your friends, recently got dumped by Claire Sanders? How long do you think it’ll take me to get a name?”
Sean looked ready to surrender. “You gonna have him charged?”
“No,” I said.
“You gonna throw him in a trunk or anything?”
I glanced over at Sean, then back to the road. “No. I won’t do that.”
“His name’s Roman.”
“Roman?” I said. “Roman Ravelson? Whose parents own the furniture place?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t he a bit old for Claire?” I knew he was twenty-one.
“Whatever,” he said. “She broke it off, anyway. But now she knows how it feels, so maybe she’ll get back with him, although I kind of doubt it.”
“What, did someone dump her?” I asked.