“You still can, Lund. We can arrange all those things for you.”
“But nothing happened. I told her she had to drop it, that I would never return her feelings, and she moved on. She started dating Tommy Kinakis. That’s when I finally felt like the whole nightmare was behind me, when I began seeing them in the halls. It seemed like they were together for the rest of the year, but I have no idea why. He’s a big, hulking idiot. Have you even talked to Tommy yet? He acted like she was his property, always draping an arm over her and steering her through crowds in the halls like she couldn’t walk by herself.”
“You must have been watching her pretty close to know all that.”
“With the rest of the students, I couldn’t care less. But yes—I watched Hattie.” He slumped a bit as he said it, maybe ashamed, maybe relieved to get it off his chest. “How could I not? I was paranoid that she’d decide to turn me in.”
“Well, then, this all worked out pretty nice for you. Can’t hurt you now, can she?”
“No! How can you even say that?” He snapped back up, indignant as hell. “I fucked up, okay? I know it. I’m an asshole and a lousy husband.”
“No arguments here.”
“But that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that Hattie was the brightest and most promising student in that entire school. She . . . understood people, she could peg you with a glance. It was unsettling sometimes, like she could see right through you. She was going to New York in the fall and I knew that she would fit right in with that fast-paced East Coast mentality. I knew she would do something amazing with her life. And I was relieved, too, okay? That she would be gone and I could move on with my life.”
“Maybe next fall wasn’t fast enough for you. Or maybe Hattie decided she needed some cash for her trip to New York or a little bump in her GPA.” It grated, having to talk about Hattie like that, heaping ugliness on her, but I couldn’t spare her from it. I had to bare all her secrets, and just hope I could keep some of it from Bud and Mona.
“The only time I spoke to Hattie in the last few months was in class or at the play. She wasn’t blackmailing me. She wouldn’t do that. You need to talk to Tommy. Hattie was going places and Tommy wasn’t. If she tried to break up with him . . . these last few days . . . it’s the only thing I can think of.”
I nodded and shuffled the emails back together in the folder, flipping it shut. He was working up a good sweat trying to put the knife in Tommy’s hands.
“Where were you on Friday night after the play, Lund?”
“I had to wait until everyone left and then lock up the school. Carl helped me. Then we went over to his place for a drink.”
“Carl Jacobs?”
He nodded.
“Okay, let’s go.” I stood up and handed the folder to Jake.
“To Carl’s? He’s still at school.”
I led him out the door, practically cuffing him on his sweaty collar. “We’re going to Mayo. I’m gonna give you a chance to clear your name, Lund. Or clean it up some, anyway.”
I put him in the front seat again, in case any of those news vans happened to be watching, and walked Jake back to the station door, talking low.
“You think he was the one that had sex with her?” Jake asked.
“Lab’ll tell us one way or the other. He wanted to, that’s for damn sure. Comes down to whether he was more horny or scared, I guess.”
“I’d go with scared. That guy reeks of chicken shit. You want me to pull Carl Jacobs in?”
“Just do a phone interview. The less people we parade into the station, the better. Corroborate the alibi. I want to know when they left the school, what they drank, what they talked about, and when Lund left Carl’s house. I’ll get the same from Lund on the way to Rochester. Call me as soon as you know.”
“You’ll pick up this time?” He was too excited to put much sarcasm behind it.
“I might at that. And Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“Not one word of this to anyone outside this conversation, you understand? Not dispatch, not Nancy or any of the boys, not even your mother. The press would have a field day.” I passed a hand over my face. “And I’d have to arrest Bud for murdering this sorry excuse here.”
“What do I say if someone asks about Lund?”
“You tell them to keep their big noses out of an ongoing investigation.”
Jake seemed to like that idea and I left him to it, walking over to the cruiser. Lund was sunk into the seat, his head turned away from the window like the whole damn town didn’t already know where he was. LitGeek liked to hide. Now the question was, how much was he hiding?
HATTIE / Wednesday, November 7, 2007
“COME ON, Hattie. You know you’re going to.”
Portia took a bite of her hamburger, made a face, and set it back down. “Didn’t I say no pickles?”
Maggie leaned across the Dairy Queen booth and picked off Portia’s pickles, popping them in her mouth. “I don’t know. She’s a big, fat community theater star now. Probably too good for our spring play.”