“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s not the first time I’ve been hungover.”
“It’s a first for me,” she said. “I’ve got to call Mike.”
He watched her walk away to the pay phone nearby. He had awoken this morning still wearing his clothes. His shoes were in the corner, and he guessed Joe had been the one who had removed them. He sure as hell had no memory of it. Or much of anything from last night. Joe had been quiet all morning, and he knew she was pissed. He knew this wasn’t the time to try to mend anything, though. He could barely think right now.
He heard heavy footsteps and turned. Shockey was coming toward him like an unblocked linebacker. He grabbed Louis’s arm and pushed him out through the front doors. Louis was standing on the walk before he could make his mind work enough to react.
He jerked away from Shockey. “Don’t you ever grab me again.”
“I asked you not to come here.”
“And I asked you to tell me everything you knew about Jean Brandt,” Louis said. “Why didn’t you tell me Jean had a kid?”
Shockey blinked. “What?”
“A kid,” Louis said. “There’s a toy wagon out at the farm. It has amy painted on the side. Who is Amy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop lying to me, you sorry piece-”
Louis stopped himself, seeing two uniformed patrolmen approaching. He pulled in a breath, and he and Shockey both waited until the cops disappeared into the station.
“Jean never mentioned a kid,” Shockey said. “I’m telling you the truth. We talked about everything, but I swear, no kid.”
“Then how do you explain the wagon?” Louis asked.
“Hell, I don’t know,” Shockey said. “Probably belongs to some neighbor kid.”
“There’s not a house for miles around that place, you know that.”
“Then maybe someone else lived there for a short time after Brandt left.”
“Brandt never sold it.”
Shockey was quiet.
“There was pink wallpaper in one of the bedrooms,” Louis said.
“My ex-wife put pink wallpaper in
“I
“Then what happened to her?” Shockey asked.
“What do you think?” Louis asked.
Shockey froze for a second, then moved away, raking his hair. He seemed genuinely stunned. Louis wanted to believe he was, but the man had been playing on the edge of the truth since this began.
Shockey turned back to him. His face was slack, but Louis could almost see the gears in his brain working, like he was trying hard to remember something.
“Okay, okay,” Shockey said. “Maybe Jean had a kid, I don’t know. But I swear to God, she never said anything.”
“We need to find out for sure,” Louis said.
Shockey didn’t seem to hear him. He was still stunned by what Louis had told him.
“Shockey,” Louis said, “where do you want to start?”
Shockey scratched his forehead. “Well, without an age or birth date, there’s no point in checking state records,” he said. “You should start with the schools out there.”
Louis let out a stale breath, his head throbbing. “They won’t tell me anything,” he said. “Their records are confidential.”
Louis heard the door behind him open and saw Shockey look beyond him. Shockey thrust out his hand as Joe came up to them.
“Detective Jake Shockey,” he said, introducing himself. “You must be the undersheriff.”
“Joe Frye, Leelanau County,” Joe said with a smile.
Shockey tipped his head toward Louis. “You with the peeper on a personal visit or working the case with him?”
“Mostly the first, a little of the second.”
Shockey gave Joe a quick, appraising look, then turned back to Louis. “Folks in those towns out there will talk to a sheriff.”
He nodded to Joe. “Just let her flash her badge.”
The school in Hell was a three-story, red brick building. To the right was a playground, to the left a football field. There were a bunch of screaming kids on the swings and a squad of teenage boys running sprints on the field. The two contrasting stretches of grass were testament to the school’s service to students from kindergarten to high school.
“Got your badge out?” Louis asked.
Joe glanced at him and led the way into the school’s dim lobby. At the door stenciled with the word office, Louis held the door open so Joe could go in first.
A woman with winged glasses and a thick cardigan sweater rose from a desk to greet them. While Joe introduced herself, Louis looked around. Beyond the windows, he could see the football field’s scoreboard, one of those old hang-the-numbers kinds, with a cut-out of a roaring lion mounted on top.
The secretary’s voice drew him back to her.
“Amy Brandt?” the woman said. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard the name. Do you know what grade she would have been in?”
“Old enough to have a wagon and young enough to still want to play with it,” Joe said.
They waited while the woman rifled through a file cabinet. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have no Amy Brandt.”
Louis had the thought that maybe Amy might be a middle name or a nickname. “Do you have
The woman reached back into the drawer and pulled out two folders. “I have a Geneva and an Owen.”
“May we see Owen’s?” Louis asked.
The secretary came back to the counter and started to hand the file to Joe. Louis intercepted it and flipped it open. He had no idea what could be in there that could be of any use, but he wanted to look.
The first paper was a history of Owen Brandt’s time in school. He started kindergarten in 1953, missed a year in 1962, and finally dropped out in the tenth grade.
Louis sifted through the rest. Report cards, heavy with D’s and F’s, teachers’ notes, class schedules, and a list of family contacts.
“Geneva was his older sister,” he said to Joe.
Joe was flipping through Geneva’s file. “I know. Nothing important in her file. Mediocre grades, lots of absences. Looks like she left school at sixteen.”
Louis found a form titled “Disciplinary History.” It was filled with the handwriting of teachers, starting in grade school: fighting, insubordination, fighting, truancy.
“Look at these,” Louis said, sliding the paper to Joe.
Age ten. Owen hit Mary Jane Wilson in her face with his fist. Suspended three days. Age fourteen. Owen tore Betsy Miller’s blouse. Sheriff Potts called. Suspended three weeks.
“I have a feeling that was more than a torn blouse,” Joe said.
Louis nodded. He closed the file and handed it back to the secretary. Joe thanked her, and they left the school. As they walked across the parking lot, Louis fell a few paces behind. Joe turned to look back at him when she reached the Bronco.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“Sorry about that remark about you having your badge ready,” he said.
“No problem.”
“It was just the hangover talking.”
