It wasn’t all that late: lights shone from most of the windows—I thought there was one on even in Mary Ann’s—maybe she was reading in bed. I sat in the car, harvesting the remnants of my energy, before moving on stiff legs up the walk into her entryway. In case she was asleep, I didn’t ring her bell but let myself into the building. I moved almost stealthily up the stairs, trying to disguise my tread so that Scurry wouldn’t recognize it and start barking. With the same stealth, I undid the locks to her door and slipped inside.
The dog came skittering down the hall to meet me, but I put the groceries down and picked him up before he could make a noise. He licked my face with delight but wriggled free and ran back toward the kitchen. I picked up the bag and followed him. Mary Ann’s bedroom door was shut, but a light was on in the back. I slipped past her room to the kitchen.
Fumbling with the locks to the back door, their faces tight with terror, were Josie Dorrado and Billy the Kid.
43
The Fugitives
I was so stunned that I stood for a moment, unable to speak or even think. Mary Ann’s strange manner—her reluctance to see me, her insistence I be very precise in letting her know when I’d be coming—and the person who’d answered her phone without speaking—I’d never imagined she’d be harboring the fugitives.
Billy was shielding Josie from me as if I were going to wreak retribution on them. He swallowed nervously. “What are you going to do now?”
“Now? I’m going to unpack Mary Ann’s groceries, make myself some coffee, and get you guys to tell me just what you’re up to.”
“You know what I mean,” Billy said. “What are you going to do about—well, seeing us here?”
“That depends on what you tell me about why you’re hiding out.”
When I put the perishables into the refrigerator, I saw the kids had bought themselves Cokes and pizzas. I thought longingly of the bottle of Armagnac in my liquor closet, but I put on water for coffee and made myself toast.
“I don’t have to tell you anything.” In his truculence, Billy sounded much younger than his nineteen years.
“You don’t have to,” I agreed, “but you can’t stay at Coach McFarlane’s forever. If you tell me what you know, and who you’re hiding from, I might be able to sort it out for you, or run interference, or, if you’re in serious danger of your life, get you to a safe place.”
“We’re safe here,” Josie said. “Coach doesn’t let anyone see us.”
“Josie, use your brain. If someone in your building had two strangers staying with them, how long would it be before you heard about it?”
She flushed and hung her head.
“People talk. They like to have news to report. Billy’s family has hired the biggest detective agency in the world, certainly in Chicagoland, to find him. Eventually one of the investigators will talk to someone who knows Mary Ann, and they’ll hear about the strange young couple who sometimes take her dog out for her, or pick up pizza and Coke at the Jewel, or hide in the kitchen when the visiting nurse comes. And if they come for Billy, they might hurt you, or Mary Ann.”
“So we need to find another place,” Billy said bleakly.
I poured out coffee for myself and offered the pot to them. Josie went to the refrigerator for a soda, but Billy accepted a cup. I watched, fascinated, as he stirred about a quarter of a cup of sugar into it.
“And what about your mother, Josie? She’s sick with worry over you. She keeps thinking you’re lying dead in the landfill where we found April’s dad. Were you going to let her go on indefinitely imagining she’d lost you?”
Billy said, “They were in the landfill? Who put them in the landfill?” while Josie muttered something about her mother not liking her to be with Billy.
“How rotten of her. You’re fifteen, smart and savvy enough for boys to be spending the night in your own bedroom, or to be sleeping together—where—on Coach McFarlane’s pullout bed? You’re going to have to go home sooner or later. Let’s make it sooner.”
“But, Coach, it’s quiet here. There’s no baby. I don’t have my sister taking my stuff, or the boys sleeping under the dining room table. There’s no roaches in the kitchen—it’s so peaceful here. I don’t want to go back!” Her dark eyes blazed with passion, and a kind of longing. “And Coach McFarlane likes having me here, she said so. She makes me work on my studies, and I help look after her, I do stuff like I did for my grandma when she was sick, I don’t mind it.”
“That’s a separate matter,” I said, calming down—I’d been in that apartment on Escanaba too many times not to respond to her yearning for quiet. “Let’s sit down and figure out what to do about Billy’s problems.”
I pulled the chairs out from under Mary Ann’s old enamel table. Billy’s chin was still sticking out pugnaciously, but the fact that he sat down at my command meant he was ready to answer my questions.
“Billy, I just came from April’s house. While I was there, Freddy Pacheco broke in. He tore the place apart. At first, I thought he was looking for the drawing he’d made for Bron—” I pulled out the paper, now very worn, with a tear along one crease.
“You have that?” Billy cried out. “How did you get it?”
“It was near where your car was wrecked Monday night. What do you know about it?”