“It’s not the first time that thing has been on fire,” she said, moving away from me. It was clear she didn’t want to be near me. When I turned toward the back door, Keller was gone.
AFTER THE HALFTIME rush, I staggered out of the Boosters hut to the fence, my new Parks High School shirt stained with nacho cheese and my hair smelling of smoke. The game was a goner. I checked along the bench for Joshua.
“He’s on the field,” Mullen said. I hadn’t noticed him there in his street clothes and Parks High green ball cap pulled low.
I peered into the fray of boys on the field until I found him. He was running along the edge of the field nearest us and, just as I spotted him, caught a long pass and fell wildly, ass over helmet into a group of players from the opposing side. I gripped the fence, my heart in my throat. “Oh, my God—”
Mullen was clapping. “Stop being a mom for a second,” he said. “That was a fine catch.”
Joshua hopped up, Frankenstein monster’s padded shoulders on top of skinny white legs. He passed the football to a referee and ran back to the other boys, who pounded at his back and slapped at his helmet.
“Was Charity Jordan Bo’s mistress?”
Mullen went still. “Where did you hear that?”
“Just . . . in the air,” I said. “Is Leila a drug user?”
“After just one shift in the Boosters kitchen?” he said. “What else did you learn?”
That a very young woman officer had a crush on the sheriff, but I didn’t say that. And after the episode with the fire extinguisher, I couldn’t deny that he was the kind of guy women got crushes on. So was Shane, I noticed. No wonder Grace was on alert.
“They found a packed suitcase in Charity’s garage,” I said.
He stared at me, licked his lips. “That’s news to me.”
“I think it’s news to everyone,” I said. “I guess she had some big plans coming up.”
“I guess so.”
“So the drugs . . . are they homemade in Parks or do they come in from other places?”
Mullen leaned back on the fence and watched a play on the field. “If we knew the source, Russ would clamp down on it. But it’s out there, no matter what we do.”
“Any new leads on Leila Ransey?”
“Most people ask about Aidan,” Mullen said. His eyes flicked behind me, along the stands, and then to his other side. “Leila Ransey was supposed to be off somewhere, getting clean, but we can’t seem to find her to make sure her hands are as clean as some people want us to believe.”
“Some people? Her family?”
“I think the Ranseys are all she’s got,” he said. “Bo and Mama Ransey. Bea, I mean. I’m talking about local do-gooders, sticking their necks in. Russ threatened a warrant, but it’s no good. She’s not here. Town’s too small to hide a missing woman for this long.”
A matter of opinion.
“And that receipt, anyway,” he said. “She’s on the run now.”
“She used her mother-in-law’s credit card,” I said. “How’d she get it?”
“Stole it,” he said.
The thing that really bothered me, though, was Charity’s death. It didn’t make any sense. If I hadn’t seen that grocery list and those cramped, scared letters crowded into the only space they were allowed to take up, I might have been picturing a baseball bat in Leila’s hands, too. But she hadn’t used it on Bo—why bother with killing Charity? And where could she be?
Something occurred to me. “I forgot something at the booth.”
“Hey,” Mullen called as I walked away. “Keller hasn’t deputized you, has he?”
At the back door of the Boosters booth I stuck my head in and surveyed the damage. The rush was over and the volunteers left behind were busy cleaning up.
“Hot dogs, definitely short on hot dogs,” Stephanie said, jotting some notes onto a notepad on the counter. When she saw me, she whipped the notes over.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Grace, can you watch the cash bag? I’ll be right back.” She followed me outside, pulling at the neck of her T-shirt to fan herself. “What’s up?”
“I want to help,” I said.
“I think you may have done enough for your first day,” she said.
“No, I mean—with Leely.”
She stared at me.
“And Sommer House, right? That’s what it’s called?” I threw myself into the void. “Your card. It doesn’t have an address and—well, I have what you might call relevant experience.”
“If the sheriff sent you—”
“He didn’t.”
“I don’t know where she is,” she said, her eyes darting all around us. “I really don’t.”
“But you know where she used to be.”
She sighed. “She hates that name. Leely.”
I did, too. “What can I do?”
“If you have actual relevant experience, you’ll know already,” she said. “Practically nothing. The system is stacked against her.”
“I don’t think she killed that woman.”
Stephanie looked at me as she had when I’d given Grace a generous reading of her handwriting. “The problem is, you and I and the real killer are the only ones who believe it.”
Chapter Fifteen
On Monday morning, Sherry called again. Early, but I was wide awake, facing a large mug of tea and the day’s work. After the call I would be disappointed I hadn’t been in bed; with any luck I could have missed the call entirely. Sherry said, “Sheriff wants to know if you’ll go check out something for him.”
“He—what?” I had already written off the entire experiment with local law enforcement the night he’d been in the apartment. Yes, I’d been drawn into the Ranseys’ case through a few odd parallels between past and present, and finally, I hated to admit it, through the magnetic charms of the sheriff. That man, I’d found myself thinking after he’d left. I was sitting at the table where he’d lectured me on things he knew nothing about, and now he had another bug up his ass? He was something else. He really was. “I thought I was done with all the samples he had,” I said.
“This is something new, I think,” Sherry said. “He wants you to go meet with someone at the high school.”
“Does it have something to do with Aidan?”
“I wouldn’t say so. I mean, Aidan is two. His mom and dad went there, you know, like years ago, but we all did.” Sherry’s voice was taking on a lilting, singsong quality the longer she talked, as though she didn’t often get asked for theories.
“The high school,” I said, remembering that Aidan did have a relative at that school. “Could it be the junior high school? It’s the same building.”
“Oh, maybe,” she said. “I don’t know what he teaches. He was a few years ahead but I remember him anyway. When I was in the sixth grade, Joe Jeffries was all-state football, and what an ass he had—”
“Joe Jeffries. You mean the guidance counselor.”
“The sheriff called him a teacher, but, sure, if you know who he is, then you’re probably right. Hot. I wish I got assignments like this.”
“I’m supposed to go see Joe Jeffries.”
“Soon, like today. And report back to me when you’re done.”
“Back to you?”