Читать книгу The Next Killing - Rebecca Drake - Страница 15

The same newbie investigator who’d botched the photographs managed redemption by coming up with a definite make on the sneaker print.

“Heelys,” Mark Coleman said, slapping a photocopy of a black sneaker on the counter. “A perfect size seven.”

“What the hell is a heelie?” Oz looked confused.

“I thought you had kids, Oz,” Stephanie said. “They’re the sneakers with a wheel in the back.”

They’d called the crime scene unit to check on progress and raced straight over to the sheriff’s office, which was more like a complex of offices, which included the crime lab.

“So it’s some kind of roller skate?” Oz said, squinting at the picture.

“A tennis shoe combined with a roller skate,” Mark Coleman said, “the best of both worlds. Your print is from The Atomic. Model 7145.”

He pulled a Sharpie from his pocket and scrawled this on the back of the copy. “They’re not just for kids, you know. I’ve got a pair.”

Stephanie hid a smile and stepped in front of Oz to block the look on his face from Coleman’s view. “This is great. Thanks so much.”

She slipped her sunglasses back on once they were outside. The weather had finally turned. It was a perfect fall day, high sun and blue sky, breezy enough for a light sweater, but not so crisp that they couldn’t sit outside at the Java Joint for five minutes soaking up the sun.

“What kind of sorry excuse for a man buys a sneaker with a wheel in it?” Oz said, tapping the picture with his take-out cup. “That’s just wrong.”

“You’ve got latte on your mustache, He-Man,” Stephanie said, handing him a napkin.

He took it, shaking his head at her. Mustache cleaned and manhood restored, he tapped the photocopy again. “At least doofus got us a make. Now we’ve just got to find the owner of these shoes.”

“It’s a guy’s shoe. Didn’t that girl, Heather what’s-her-name—didn’t she mention some boy?”

“Yeah, Brad or Rick something?” Oz reached inside the breast pocket of his blazer for his notebook. With her sunglasses on, the buffalo-check plaid was less objectionable. Stephanie wondered for the umpteenth time if Oz’s wife, a seemingly pleasant woman who did all his shopping, was color-blind or just passive-aggressive.

Brad or Rick turned out to be Beau Steuben. “No wonder I didn’t remember,” Oz said as she punched the third number into her cell phone. “What the fuck kind of name is Beau?”

“Isn’t there some soap opera hero with that name?” The phone rang and rang before an answering machine picked up. She left a message with her number and checked that one off the list.

“You give a kid a name like that, you’re just inviting him to get picked on,” Oz said as he drove back to the station. “What’s wrong with old-fashioned names like Michael or John?”

“Isn’t your youngest one named Jaspar?”

Oz scowled. “It’s a family name.” He drove for a few minutes in silence, making faces at the windshield. “There’s nothing wrong with that name. What’s wrong with it?”

Stephanie looked out the passenger window to hide her grin. “I don’t know, just seems a little, well, girly to me.”

“Girly?” Oz’s already booming voice hit sonic levels.

“Ssh, it’s ringing,” Stephanie said, turning to show him the phone held to her ear, while she struggled to suppress laughter.

“Girly my ass,” Oz muttered. “Jaspar is a fine name. He goes by Jas anyway.”

“No answer,” she hit the off button. “This might take time.”

“It wasn’t my choice,” Oz said in a sulky voice. “I wanted Trevor, but Eileen insisted. It’s someone on her side, General Jaspar.”

Stephanie couldn’t hold back the laughter and it burst forth in peals that were almost painful she’d been holding them back for so long.

In under a minute a multitude of expressions crossed Oz’s wide face, running the gamut from insulted to puzzled, then back to insulted, before a grin finally slipped out and he guffawed.

“Okay, ballbuster, you got me.”

“That’s Miss Ballbuster,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with Jaspar. Trevor, on the other hand—”

“What’s wrong with Trevor? That’s a good masculine name.”

“Reminds me of a dog. Here, Trevor, here, boy.” Suddenly her cell phone rang. “Detective Land.” She listened for a moment and then snapped her fingers at Oz and made a spinning motion with one hand.

He turned the car around, fishtailing with practiced ease, and smacked the siren on the dash.

Stephanie snapped her phone shut. “We got him.”

The first thing Stephanie thought when she saw sixteen-year-old Beau Steuben was that this wasn’t a kid who played football. He was small and slight, with spiky brown hair, a pug nose with a scattering of freckles, and big brown eyes.

He was dressed head to toe in black, the tight T-shirt and skinny jeans only serving to emphasize his diminutive size. While the black leather and silver-spiked dog collar around his neck and the silver barbell in one eyebrow were probably supposed to make him look tough, they had the opposite effect. He looked like someone’s pet. If she’d been a drama teacher, Stephanie would have cast him as Puck in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

He wasn’t, unfortunately, wearing Heelys, but black Chuck Taylors; he fiddled absently with the laces on the left foot. He’d drawn that leg up when he sat down in the oversized armchair in the living room of the Steuben home.

“We’re sorry about your friend Morgan’s death,” Oz said, and Stephanie was so ready to hear the boy disavow any connection to the girl that she wasn’t at all prepared for the tears that welled in his eyes.

Stephanie looked at Oz, who blinked, clearly surprised, and she glanced at the boy’s mother, Valerie Steuben, who’d been hovering in the arched entrance to the room since first summoning Beau. She vanished and came back with a tissue box, carrying it over to her son while shooting nervous looks at Oz and Stephanie as if she thought they might stop her.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, taking one and swiping at his eyes.

“You were close?” Oz asked, recovering.

“Yeah.”

“How did you two meet?”

His mother answered for him. “They went to school together all through elementary.”

“But she didn’t go on to the public high school with you?”

Beau shrugged, but Valerie Steuben seemed to take this as an affront. “Gashford’s school system is one of the best in the state,” she said. “Our high school is top ranked.”

“Why did Morgan choose St. Ursula’s instead?”

“She didn’t choose it, her mother did,” Beau said with disdain.

Mrs. Steuben gave them a nervous smile. “I think Janice thought that same-sex education was beneficial for girls.”

“How did you hear about her death, Beau?”

“A friend told me.”

“Who? Heather Lester?”

The boy’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open slightly, apparently a reaction to their incredible investigative powers. He nodded. “Yeah. How’d you know that?”

“We talked to Heather,” Stephanie said. “Where were you three nights ago, Beau?”

His mouth closed and he stopped fiddling with his laces. “Home.”

Valerie Steuben said quickly, “He was here all night.” She sank down in the chair opposite his, one hand straying to her mouth as if she were going to bite her nails before she pulled it hastily down to her lap.

There was no sign of Mr. Steuben, who was probably out earning the paycheck that paid for this big house on one of Gashford’s older, leafier streets, but if Beau owed anything to his dad in the looks department Stephanie would be surprised. Valerie Steuben was just an older, female version of her son. A tiny woman with big nervous eyes and small restless hands, she reminded Stephanie of some Disney-created, anthropomorphized woodland creature.

“Are you sure you weren’t with Morgan that night?” Stephanie said to Beau.

“No, I mean, yeah, I’m sure.”

“We know she wasn’t alone,” Oz said. “We also know that you used to visit her. How did you get up there? Did you drive?”

“I wasn’t up on the Hill.”

“C’mon, Beau. We know you hung out with her.”

“Sure, I mean, she was my friend. But I wasn’t up there.” His right foot beat a silent tattoo on the carpet.

Oz glanced down at his notebook. “You’re a self-proclaimed pagan?”

“Yeah.” The small chin jutted forward as if the boy expected a fight. It came from his mother.

“It’s just a phase,” she said, shaking her head at him.

“Mom!”

She aimed her hand at him like a stop sign and looked from Oz to Stephanie, “We’re Lutherans. This is just some idea that girl gave him.”

“You mean Morgan?”

Mrs. Steuben nodded. “She was obviously rebelling—all teenagers do, right? Look, I don’t blame Beau for going along with her—she’s a pretty girl. Was, I mean.”

“Shut up, Mom.” It was muttered, but all of them heard it. Two spots of color appeared high on Valerie Steuben’s cheekbones and the wide eyes grew wider still.

“How dare you!” she shrieked, standing up and over her son like a tiny bird of prey, her bony hands clenching like talons she longed to put around his neck.

“Okay, Mom, sorry—just chill.” Beau held up his own hands in a placating manner, rolling his eyes at the behavior of adults.

Mrs. Steuben sat back down but appealed to the two detectives. “When I was a girl we didn’t call boys, we waited for them to call us. Girls these days, they’re just so forward.”

“Yeah,” Oz agreed. Stephanie shot him a dirty look and he hastily said, “What size shoes do you wear, Beau?”

“Seven.”

“You own any Heelys?”

“No.” The tattoo increased. His whole knee was shaking.

“Yes, you do, Beau—”

“Shut up, Mom!” Beau let his other foot drop to the ground.

“You shut up!” she shrieked back at him. “Yes, he owns Heelys. I paid a small fortune for them last year.”

“They don’t fit.”

“Since when?”

“Since whenever they stopped fitting!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Your feet haven’t grown.”

“We need to see those shoes,” Stephanie said.

Beau looked from her to his mother and back. “I gave them away.”

“What do you mean you gave them away? Those things were expensive!”

“Who did you give them to?” Oz said, exchanging a look with Stephanie.

“Nobody. I put them in one of those Goodwill boxes.”

“The one out by the Lowe’s on Washington?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you get out there?”

“I drove.”

Oz sighed. “There is no Goodwill box at the Lowe’s, Beau. You’re lying.”

The boy’s mouth fell open again and he pressed his back further into the chair. “I’m not!” he said, but it came out as a squeak.

Valerie Steuben looked like she might cry. “I don’t understand? What do the shoes have to do with anything?”

“Your son was in the woods with Morgan Wycoff, weren’t you, Beau?”

“Okay, okay, I was there, but not that night. The day before. I swear!”

“Were you drinking?” Stephanie asked.

“What? No way! If Heather told you that she’s a liar.”

“Was Heather with you and Morgan in the woods?”

Valerie Steuben closed her eyes, hands clasped on her knees as if bracing for the worst. “Beau, what have you done?”

“Nothing, Mom!” Beau sat up straight. “Look, we liked to hang out up there sometimes. It was private.”

“A good place to perform witchcraft?” Oz asked.

The boy sighed. “It’s not witchcraft,” he said. “Wicca isn’t like that.”

“But you did some Wicca ritual in the woods?”

Valerie Steuben moaned and Beau rolled his eyes again. “Look, that was Morgan’s thing, not mine. It’s like, I support it, but I’m not that into it.”

Stephanie pulled a crime scene photo of the pentagram out of her jacket pocket. There’d been no way to take a picture of the entire circle given the tree in the middle, but they’d put the photos of each half together and taken a photo of that. It wasn’t a super-clean shot, but it worked.

She placed it on the coffee table and slid it over toward Beau. “You recognize this?”

The boy didn’t touch the photo, just sat forward, elbows on knees, and stared at it. Stephanie watched his face looking for any sign of recognition, but he didn’t react beyond absently twisting his eyebrow piercing.

“Yeah, it’s a pentagram,” he said, sitting back. “So?”

“Did Morgan draw this?”

“How should I know? If you’re going to ask if I drew it the answer is no.”

“What about any of Morgan’s other friends? Do you know anyone who might have drawn it?”

“Morgan didn’t have a lot of friends. Not at St. Ursula’s, anyway.”

“Did she have any enemies?”

He snorted. “Hell, yeah. The girls there are stuck-up bitches.”

“Anybody in particular?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember. It’s not like we spent time talking about them. She wanted to forget them, forget that whole place.”

“But you met her up in the woods?”

“Sometimes.”

Stephanie said, “How’d you get past security, Beau?”

“You mean those old guys?” He laughed. “It’s a big campus.”

“So you were up there the day before. What time did you get there?”

“I don’t know. Four maybe.”

“And how long did you stay?”

The kid shrugged, avoiding her eyes. “I don’t know. An hour.” His foot began tapping again.

“C’mon, Beau, cut the crap,” Oz said in a stern voice. “You’re lying about this—“

“I’m not!”

“—just like you lied about your shoes. You’d better tell us the truth right now or I’m going to haul you down to the station and charge you with obstruction!” He stood up and slipped the cuffs from the back of his khakis. Stephanie stood up, too.

She knew this was mostly dramatics; they’d be hard pressed to make any charge against this kid stick without tangible evidence, but the Steubens didn’t know that. Valerie gaped like a stranded fish and Beau leapt to his feet, waving his hands frantically at Oz to ward him off.

“No! Stop it!”

Oz took a step toward him. “Five seconds, Beau!”

“It’s like I said—I was there the day before!”

“Four.”

“You can’t arrest me! I didn’t do anything!”

“Three.” The big detective took another step forward.

The boy turned wild eyes on his mother, who was now biting her nails. “Mom, please!”

Valerie Steuben looked at Stephanie as if she thought she might intervene. Stephanie stared her down and the mother turned on her son. “Tell them, Beau! Tell them what they want to know!”

“Two.”

“Okay! Okay! Stop! I’ll tell you.”

Oz paused, but he didn’t put away the cuffs.

“I was there that night, but just for a while.”

“What time did you leave?”

“Eight.”

“You’re lying, Beau.”

“No! It’s the truth!”

Stephanie shook her head. “Why should we believe you now, Beau?”

“Because it’s the truth!”

“You wouldn’t know the truth if it smacked you in the face.” Oz casually opened one handcuff.

“I can prove it!”

“How, Beau?”

“Just a sec.” He sprinted from the room and came back carrying a sleek black laptop. He thrust it at Oz. “Here. Take it.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Oz said.

“You can scan it or do some technical shit like that,” Beau said breathlessly. He tapped the case. “It’s all there, man. I couldn’t have been in the woods with Morgan because I was in a chat room with some role-playing chick all night.”