I was aware that the place was filling up with off-duty police officers. The STPD had settled into Rosie’s like a flock of homing pigeons when the Caliente Café, their former roost, had closed following a kitchen fire. Rosie’s had previously been the home to a crew of sports rowdies, who jammed the place for the Super Bowl and countless other sporting events. Their softball trophies were still in evidence, along with a jock strap someone had flung over the stuffed marlin Rosie’d hung above the bar. These migratory rowdies had moved on, as though in response to the changing seasons. Off-duty officers were a breath of fresh air by comparison, as their shoptalk centered on crime. This dovetailed with my interests and meant there was always someone willing to kvetch about robbery, murder, assault, and displays of public drunkenness.
Rosie brought Ruthie a martini straight up and brought me a glass of white wine, freshly poured from a one-gallon jug she kept on a shelf out of sight. This was so her patrons couldn’t see the label on the cheap brand she bought. One taste was all it took to identify the wine as swill, but none of us had the nerve to bitch. Rosie was a bit of a bully when it came to her place. She told you what to eat, which was inevitably a strange Hungarian dish replete with offal and sour cream. If some bites contained gristle or fat, you quietly spat the offending matter into your paper napkin and discarded it at home. Trust me, she’d catch you if you tried using one of her fake ficus trees as a dumping ground. Mostly you were well advised to keep your complaints to yourself.
“Are you having dinner?” Ruthie asked when Rosie was gone.
“I’d thought so. Has she said anything about tonight’s fare?”
“Creamed chicken livers with a side of sauerkraut.”
I could feel my mouth purse. “Maybe I can talk her into a bowl of soup.”
Ruthie said, “Uh, no. She’s made a pot of what’s called—I kid you not—Butchering Celebration Soup, along with a roast pork that’s baked with the fat from the pig’s abdominal cavity.”
“I think I’ll wait and have a sandwich when I get home.”
“I would if I were you. I ate before I came,” Ruthie said.
The menu was sufficient to dampen my appetite, but when Jonah Robb appeared, I felt myself brighten, waving him over to the table. He was another Santa Teresa cop with whom I’d had a romance, which might make me sound a little “loose” myself, but that wasn’t the case. Yes, there were two of them, but they were the only two. Well, okay, Robert Dietz, but he wasn’t a local cop. He was a private investigator from Carson City, Nevada, whom I hadn’t seen for months.
My dalliance with Jonah occurred during one of his many separations from his wife, Camilla, whose notion of marriage included bouts of sanctioned infidelity—hers, not his. She was back from her latest fling and Jonah had made his peace with the fact, as was usually the case. My relationship with him had never been serious, since I found myself recoiling from his constant marital uproar. Still, he remained a great source of information and I was shameless about tapping his brain trust when the occasion arose. He went to the bar, ordered a beer, and then ambled in our direction.
When he reached the table, I said, “You remember Ruth Wolinsky?”
“I do. Nice seeing you again.”
“You, too,” she said.
“Mind if I sit?” He placed his beer on the table, pulling out a chair.
“By all means.”
“How’re you doing?” he asked.
“I’m good,” I replied.
He was dark-haired and blue-eyed, trimmer than I’d seen him now that Camilla was home again. Her renewed presence in his life had apparently spoiled his appetite as well as mine. Their two teenaged girls, Courtney and Ashley, were stunning young ladies who’d gravitated to my cousin Anna just as everyone else did. I suspected we’d see the sisters shortly, but for now I had the man’s attention.
I said, “I hope you don’t mind if I pick your brain.”
“Have at it.”
“I have an appointment with Lauren McCabe, whose son was just released from CYA.”
Ruthie said, “That kid is free? Seems way too soon.”
“I’m sure a lot of people feel that way,” Jonah said. “What’s she want?”
“She said she’d prefer telling me in person, but I figure it has to be related to her son. It’s too coincidental, his being released within the past two weeks. She talked to Lonnie Kingman first, which is how she got my name.”
“She hired Lonnie to do what?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t talked to him,” I said. “I wondered what you could tell me about the Stevens girl. I know she was accused of ratting out two classmates who cheated on a test.”
“True. Someone sent an anonymous note to the school, claiming Troy Rademaker and Poppy Earl had access to the test answers. Both were good friends of Sloan’s and she swore she hadn’t turned them in.”
“Who stole the test?”
“A freshman named Iris Lehmann. She was expelled from Climp when the theft came to light and ended up at Santa Teresa High School. The incident must have been a wake-up call because aside from her testimony at the trial, she distanced herself from her pals at Climp and went on her merry way. Eventually, she graduated from S.T. High with honors, so maybe some good came of the incident.”
“Doesn’t seem like much, given the girl’s death,” Ruth remarked.
I was still putting the pieces together, trying to get a fix on the story. “You think Sloan was telling the truth?”
“I’d be willing to bet on it. She was a straight arrow. Kids who knew her said she disapproved of the cheating, but wouldn’t have betrayed her friends. Whatever the fact of the matter, a kid named Austin Brown took it into his head that she should be punished for the leak. He talked her classmates into shunning her.”
“I read about that,” I said.
“Well, this is where the story becomes garbled. There was apparently a sex tape made around the same time. The police got wind of it but never laid hands on it. The kids were all very tight-lipped about the contents and we never did get an honest answer about who was involved. Austin Brown for sure. We think Sloan acquired the only copy and threatened Brown with exposure if he didn’t put an end to the shunning.”
“Ah. Got it. So what happened to the tape?”
“No one seems to know, but the threat must have been effective. The two arrived at a temporary truce and he invited her to a pool party he organized at his parents’ cabin off Highway 154. Bad idea. Dope and a keg of beer, plus the tension generated by the clash, which was technically defused but by no means resolved. They’d dated in the past and she didn’t seem to see him as a threat. His idea was to scare her into handing over the tape, which she had no intention of doing. There was also talk that she’d insulted him and he’d taken offense. When she wouldn’t back down, he and three other guys drove her up to Yellowweed that night—Austin, Troy Rademaker, Fritz McCabe, and another boy named Bayard Montgomery. The ending, you know.”
Originally, Yellowweed was the site of a Boy Scout camp that had relocated twenty years before. The grounds had then been converted to a coeducational camp for low-income families, which closed two years later when funds ran short, leaving the area as an attractive spot for impromptu parties and overnights.