“No, I mean those were boys. You said this person was big. The paper said six-two, couple hundred pounds or more. Debbie never brought anyone home bigger than her father.”
George cleared his throat and said ruefully, “And I’m not even five-eight. Had my first growth spurt in tenth grade and never had another.” Then he fell silent, looking perplexed and a bit appalled that he had bothered to offer up triviality in the face of such tragedy.
“And they were all boys from school,” said Beth. “One of them’s dead too, in fact. Like my poor Debbie.”
“Which one?” asked Lancaster, her pen poised over her pad.
“Jimmy Schikel. Nice kid, played on the football team. Very popular. We’ve known them for years. Debbie and Jimmy went to elementary school together. He took Debbie to the junior prom, but they were just friends.” She bowed her head and said, “You just can’t imagine what it’s like to lose your child.” She picked up a paper towel off the coffee table and dabbed at her eyes while her husband awkwardly rubbed her shoulder.
At the woman’s words, Lancaster had shot Decker a glance, but he didn’t return it. He kept his gaze on Beth. He knew exactly what it was like to lose a child. And that fact wouldn’t matter in the least in this circumstance. There could be no commiseration among such people despite the seeming commonality of loss, because it was actually each parent’s totally unique hell.
“But there was someone else?” prompted Decker. “Someone you didn’t know but that Debbie also didn’t bring here? That’s what you mean, right?”
Beth balled up the paper towel and dropped it on the carpet. Her husband picked it up and placed it on the coffee table. She flicked him an annoyed look, and in observing that, Decker wondered how bad the marriage was. Just the little paper cuts that added up over the long term and that most unions survived? Or was it more than that? Enough to bring them to the point where losing Debbie might become the irreparable crack? Then again, it could cause them to circle the wagons. He had seen that happen too.
“She’d post stuff online about him. But she never talked directly about him. Even so, I picked up the signs here and there. A mom just does.”
“So you read the online posts?”
“I had her password for a while. When she found out, she changed it. She never named him. But she did have a pet name for him.”
“What was that?” asked Lancaster.
“Jesus.”
“How do you know that? Was it in one of the posts?”
“No. I saw it on the chalkboard that’s in her room. She had done some little poem about Jesus. Debbie wasn’t religious. I mean, we don’t go to church or anything, so it wasn’t that. It was a guy. The poem... was a little personal. It was definitely about a guy. When I went to ask her about it, she ran to her room and erased it.”
Decker and Lancaster exchanged a glance. He said, “But do you know if it was biblical or a Latino reference?” When she looked at him puzzled, he added, “I mean Jesus or Hey-soos.”
“Oh, well hell, I never thought about that. I just... I just thought she had some sort of God complex with the guy. But I don’t think my Debbie would have been hanging out with some Hey-soos Mexican,” she added in an offended tone. She wiped her nose and smoked her cigarette. “I mean, moms always know, even if their daughters don’t believe they can know stuff. Debbie certainly thought we were clueless.” She gave a sideways glance at her husband. “And some are clueless. Really clueless.”
Hubby removed his hand from her shoulder and dropped it between his legs, like a dog doing the same with its tail. He might have trousers on, thought Decker, but he clearly didn’t wear the pants in this family.
Decker flicked a glance at Lancaster. “Online posts?”
She nodded. “We’ll get all of it.”
“So she never said anything about this person? Nothing?”
“I asked. More than once. But she didn’t bite.” She paused. “Well, she did slip and say that I wouldn’t understand him. He was so... mature.”
“Meaning older. Not in high school?” said Decker.
“That’s what I took it to mean, yes. I mean, she was a senior. She sure as hell wasn’t talking about any of her classmates. And she didn’t bother with the juniors. And Debbie was a real looker. All developed and everything. Lots of boys had their eyes on her. I tried to give her advice, but girls don’t listen. I didn’t listen when my mom tried to tell me. I always went for the bad boys.”
Her husband looked at the detectives almost apologetically. “And then she married me.”
“Had to marry you, George. We had Debbie on the way. My mother almost had a heart attack anyway. By far the best thing to come out of our marriage was Debbie. And now I don’t even have her. Which means I’ve got nothing.”
Lancaster looked away at this and George Watson bit down on his lip and decided to focus on an old water ring mark on the coffee table.
Decker studied the pair of them. In the wake of such tragedy all other societal rules within a marriage tended to give way. What was never spoken about was now easily and readily revealed. It was as though the dam holding it all back had failed. Debbie might have been the dam. And now her death represented the breach.
“Why the sketch of the cammie gear?” asked Lancaster. She looked at George. “Do you hunt? Do you have camouflage gear here?”
He shook his head forcefully. “I couldn’t shoot an animal. I don’t even own a gun.”
Decker said, “I guess your condition would make it difficult to hold a weapon properly.”
George looked down at his malformed arm. “I was born with it.” He paused. “It’s made lots of things difficult,” he added resignedly.
“So the cammie gear might be a reference to this guy Jesus?” said Decker.
“It might be,” said George cautiously.
“It had to be,” snapped Beth. “She had a heart next to it.” She glanced at Lancaster with a knowing, exasperated look. “Guys don’t get it, do they? Never set foot in a damn Hallmark store.”
Decker said, “I saw the laptop on the kitchen counter. Did Debbie use that?”
“No, she had her own. It’s in her room.”
“Can we take a look at her room now?”
They were led down the hall by Beth. Before she turned away she took a last drag on her smoke and said, “However this comes out, there is no way my baby would have had anything to do with something like this, drawing of this asshole or not. No way. Do you hear me? Both of you?”
“Loud and clear,” said Decker. But he thought if Debbie were involved she had already paid the ultimate price anyway. The state couldn’t exactly kill her again.
Beth casually flicked the cigarette down the hall, where it sparked and then died out on the faded runner. Then she walked off.
They opened the door and went into Debbie’s room. Decker stood in the middle of the tiny space and looked around.
Lancaster said, “We’ll have the tech guys go through her online stuff. Photos on her phone, her laptop over there, the cloud, whatever. Instagram. Twitter. Facebook. Tumblr. Wherever else the kids do their electronic preening. Keeps changing. But our guys will know where to look.”
Decker didn’t answer her. He just kept looking around, taking the room in, fitting things in little niches in his memory and then pulling them back out if something didn’t seem right as weighed against something else.
“I just see a typical teenage girl’s room. But what do you see?” asked Lancaster finally.
He didn’t look at her but said, “Same things you’re seeing. Give me a minute.”
Decker walked around the small space, looked under piles of papers, in the young woman’s closet, knelt down to see under her bed, scrutinized the wall art that hung everywhere, including a whole section of People magazine covers. She also had chalkboard squares affixed to one wall. On them was a musical score and short snatches of poetry and personal messages to herself: