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Jessica’s mother weighed a good hundred pounds more than her short stance could easily carry. Her outfit hadn’t seen soap in some time and neither had her body. Obviously drunk, not because she weaved or slurred her words, but because she reeked of liquor and her eyes were cloudy and dilated.
“Why have you been chasing us and making our lives miserable?” Bogus tears she worked hard to shed were shams and Lori knew it. When the woman slouched on the chair, pushing at her matted hair with hands that were shaking, it dawned on her that not one word from this woman’s lips could be believed. All she wanted was to have her sicko world back.
“The question is, why have you been running?”
The stepfather, a cowed man of medium height and medium build, his thinning hair lank and his clothes surprisingly clean, spoke up. “We went to visit my brother in Wyoming.”
“Right. Visiting. Why were you staying in a motel room then and not with his family?” Lori took a shot in the dark and it paid off.
Expression closed, he explained in a droning tone, as if he’d memorized the words. Yet Lori sensed the hurt he held back from the obvious unwelcoming treatment they’d been shown. “He has a bunch of kids and no room. Look, we didn’t do nuthin’. I have to get back to work, or I’ll get fired. Me and Louise here, we need the money.” For Lori, hearing the man’s weak whining was as bad as listening to a toddler have a screaming meltdown in a grocery store. His nasal tones irked the hell out of her so much that she just wanted to duct tape his mouth.
Turning back to the mother, Lori raised her eyebrows and said, “Jessica is okay in case you were worried.”
“Hell no. That girl deserves everything she’s got coming to her. We don’t want nuthin’ to do with her no more. She’s been a drain for us all. Poor Herbie. My poor boy never got a decent night’s sleep for fear she’d be coming after him with the knife she has hidden.”
“For protection against his abuse.”
“Abuse!” Louise shot to her feet with a lot more power than her earlier pretense of crippling muscles let on. “He never abused that girl. She’s alyin’ iff’n she says he did.”
Beau, having stood back to let Lori take lead, now moved forward menacingly, forcing chubs to resume sitting. “Speaking of Herbie, where is this paragon?”
“He’s off on a trip to Alaska. Has a job there and decided he needed to move on. Why? He didn’t do nuthin’ either.”
“Right. Look we just have a few questions. Did you know any of Jessica’s friends, maybe a boy called Ray or Johnny Ray?”
Mrs. Boland sneered. “Jess didn’t have any friends. No one liked her because of her miserable attitude. All she did was hide whenever I needed her to help around the house. Spent all her time hanging out at the center where other freaks like her go.”
Interested now, Lori spoke up. “Can you give us the name of the place?”
“Nah. But it’s in the neighborhood. Look, we’ve told you everything we know. Can we go now?”
Beau stopped them with another inquiry. “Do you know where Jessica got the AK-15 she had at the school?”
The man spoke up first. “Shit, no. We don’t have that kind of money for no gun for a stupid kid. We’re simple folk.”
Lori couldn’t get away from them fast enough. Once in the hallway, she looked at Beau’s discomfort. “I’m off to the washroom to scrub my hands.”
He shuddered; his left eyebrow arched. “My thoughts exactly. I have some Eucalyptus oil in the car if you need to clear the stench.”
“You’re on. First, I’ll ask Larry to check into any of the centers near where they live. Maybe someone there can tell us about our buddy, JR.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Beau looked into the mirror above where he’d just scrubbed his hands, his arms and even his face. Thoughtful, he’d been impressed by the way Lori had handled the earlier interview with the Bolands. He’d felt her adversity and seen it registered in her body, the darkness in her eyes, but she’d stayed professional.
Meanwhile, it had taken everything in him not to beat the pulp out of the man who sat looking innocent as a newborn. Goddamn men like him made Beau sick. Couldn’t they see what was right under their noses? The filth they lived in and the people who made it that way.
Jesus, he knew he should feel some pity for folks like that but only disgust filled his heart. And maybe sorrow for the poor little girl who didn’t have any rights or choices.
Soon, Lori sat in the passenger seat next to him, and they discussed their observations, both coming to the same conclusions. Jessica could never return to that den of dirt and hate.
Walking inside the rundown building Larry had found close to the Boland house, they saw a number of teens crowded into the large room, most looking discouraged from what the world had handed them.
A few were playing cards at a table, and they seemed to have a bit of life in them. All the others were staring at them, but slyly. No one wanted to bring attention to themselves. Some even slid out the door when the chance came. Having no particular agenda, Beau didn’t try to stop them.
A middle-aged woman could be seen filling the trays on a side counter. Stacked cans of cheap pop, small packages of pretzels and other snack bags perched lopsidedly beside a large upside-down plastic water bottle with a tap at the bottom and plastic glasses beside it.
For the hell of it, Beau stepped forward to get a package of chips and saw that the Best Before date was close. Not surprised, he figured the food had been donated by nearby grocery stores who wanted to be seen as helping out the community obviously at no cost for themselves.
