The address was on one of those cul-de-sacs with a freestanding basketball hoop on the curb that looked like it’d come straight out of the box. I hid my bike in some shrubs a few houses down. Even in the dark, Teddy’s home was tidy and respectable, with a landscaped front yard filled with birds of paradise, mallow, and Mexican sage — the kind of place I usually insult but secretly wish for. No cars in front. Looked pretty quiet.
I slipped around the side, and discovered dim lights turned on in a back room. It was there, through a sliding-glass door, that I could see Teddy, alone under a blanket, watching a movie. It was a black-and-white Western. A stampede of cattle was mounting a grassy knoll and descending onto the wide-open plains, while picture-perfect cowboys in their chaps and spurs and boots kicked their stallions and rode alongside.
I could see the side of Teddy’s face. He’d been crying. Of course he’d been crying!
What was he doing alone? Where the fuck was his mother?
The scene just about broke me. I don’t remember what my dad and I did the day my mother died, but I have a memory of him driving us, soon after, to Disneyland.
I began to shiver and decided to get the hell out of there and go back to bed like a normal person. Just as I was drawing away into the darkness, Teddy jumped up from the couch and ran toward the front of the house. I stole around the side. A Ford Mustang had pulled into the driveway, and a man and woman got out.
They started unloading bags and boxes from the car. In the starlight I saw a tall man in a T-shirt, jeans, black canvas shoes, and bleached surfer hair — likely the one and only Kyle Wilkins. The woman had blond hair, on the young side, pretty. Teddy opened the front door and they started carrying the bags and boxes in, making several trips. I waited in the shadows until they disappeared inside.
I saw a lump on the ground by the car as I scuttled away. I had one of those primal shudders, like maybe it was an animal about to pounce on me in the dark. I snapped my fingers and the lump didn’t move. I ran over, grabbed it, and ran off.
It was a coat. Still warm, a few wet spots on it, but heavy and soft. I put it on as I jumped on my bike and rolled away. It was luxurious. It seemed like a raincoat on the outside, but there was fleece on the inside and I had this sudden thought that this was a mother’s coat. A mother’s coat would have to be this way, unlike the cold shells my dad wore over his work clothes.
When I got home, I hung it up to admire. It was chocolate brown and looked brand-new. Why did I take it? What a creepy thing to do.
The next day, Teddy Hill wasn’t at school, and my head wasn’t either. But I got through the day. You can have the worst thing in the world happen, and a second later there’s a bird singing on a wire, there are leaves rustling in the breeze. Life goes on.
All I could think about was the life and death of Ronald Hill. Why had I been chosen as witness? What was I supposed to do with it? Joe’d gotten me the background check on Kyle Wilkins, which confirmed he was the bleach-haired guy I’d seen at Teddy’s house. He had nothing more than a couple of bounced checks and speeding tickets. Not exactly Charles Manson but not Boy Scouts either. I don’t like people who bounce checks.
Wilkins was new to the area, he’d lived in Tahoe before. Here’s the good and bad thing about Santa Cruz: it’s not a place where everybody’s lived here forever and a newcomer gets the once-over. No, it’s a city where anybody can come fit in for a while, and move away before you’ve even had a chance to say hello. It’s a city full of transients, and I don’t mean the ones on the streets. I mean, you don’t always know your neighbors and you don’t ask questions. Kyle Wilkins shows up, moves in, replaces Ronald Hill, the neighbors nod or don’t nod. For that matter, a chubby truck driver and his alcoholic daughter move into a garage, nobody notices that either.
After school that day, I thought I’d ride past Ronald Hill’s former residence near the Circles. And then, what do you know. There was that same Mustang parked in front, the one I’d seen in front of Teddy’s. I jumped off my bike and walked through the open door.
Inside, Kyle Wilkins was leaning over a desk, leafing energetically through a stack of papers in a file. There was a pile of boxes in one corner, a few bulging garbage bags in another. New theory: Kyle Wilkins was the big creep, not Ronald Hill. I didn’t like how happy Kyle looked rifling through the papers of a dead man. He was like a pirate on a treasure hunt. It looked like more of the same stuff I’d seen them lugging home in the middle of the night after the accident, leaving Teddy alone. Hill wasn’t even cold and they’d already been over here, prowling around?
“Hey, what’s going on?”
Wilkins startled, but seeing a teenage girl in a Totoro sweatshirt put him at ease. “Uh, hello?” he said, revealing some extra-big teeth. “You are...?”
“Neighbor — who’re you?”
“I’m Kyle, friend of the family. Not sure if you’ve heard, but Ted’s father was in a fatal accident yesterday,” he said. “And I’m helping out.”
“Helping out doing what exactly?”
Just then, a toilet flushed. Teddy came around from the hallway. He’s tall and skinny, with black hair that hangs in his eyes. He was wearing sagging black pants and a gray hoodie with a picture of a skateboard on it.
“Uh, hey,” Teddy said.
“Hi, Teddy. I’m really sorry about your dad.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“We got a big mess here,” Kyle Wilkins said, by way of his oversized teeth. “Not very nice to leave behind a shitload of unpaid bills for people to clean up.” He smoothed back his hair.
“It’s not very nice to talk about it,” I said.
Wilkins turned away from me. “Teddy, maybe you could do your social life later?” He sounded like a bully.
I moved toward the door. “Think you’ll be back at school soon?”
“I don’t know.” Teddy followed me out, carrying a box of the papers Wilkins had been pawing. I could see a bunch of bills and bank statements on top, including an invoice from something called Life Bonanza for eight hundred dollars’ worth of fish oil pills. There might be something worth finding in Ronald Hill’s papers. Teddy threw the box onto the backseat of the Mustang. “There’s a thing later this afternoon at Peace United, if you’re interested.”
I said, trying to sound casual, “You know, my pretty-much uncle’s with the Santa Cruz PD. He’s really cool. I mean, if you ever need anything.”
Teddy looked totally weirded out. “Why would I need anything from the police?”
“I mean, if anything... feels wrong.”
“A lot of things feel wrong. My father just got run over by some asshole who’s probably forgotten all about it by now.”
I played my ace: “My mother died when I was eight, so I sort of know what it’s like.”
“Oh fuck! That sucks.”
“Bye, Teddy,” I said, and gave him a hug. For all my calculated moves, that part came spontaneously. And he hugged back, which made me feel good.
When I got home I slammed the ugly door and threw down my backpack. I couldn’t even look at the coat for a while, though it was right there, on a hall hanger. I didn’t look at it while I made myself a vodka and orange juice and watched a rerun of The Gilmore Girls. I didn’t look at it while I cleaned up my dad’s pile of oily rags and empty oil cans by the door that our landlady Connie recently complained about. She was always asking my dad to help her do stuff, and sometimes he even helped her put on her artificial leg. I didn’t want to think about it.