Flesh And Blood

“Not in a dorky sense. She was just serious about her grades… Do you think she could still be alive?”

Milo said, “Anything’s possible.”

“But unlikely.”

Milo shrugged.

Mindy shut her eyes, opened them. “She was so beautiful.”

“If Shawna did make up the story about going to the library, what do you think she was covering for?”

“I don’t think she was covering, and if she was I wouldn’t have the faintest.” The pen slipped from her grasp. She moved fast and caught it.

“Could she have been hiding the fact that she had a boyfriend?” said Milo.

Mindy licked her lips. “Why would she hide that?”

“You tell me,” said Milo gently.

Mindy edged away from him. “I have no idea.”

“Did Shawna have a boyfriend, Ms. Jacobus-Grieg?”

“Not that I knew.”

Milo consulted his pad. “Funny, going over the file, I copied down something about a boyfriend… For some reason I thought that came from you.”

“No way. Why would I tell anyone that?”

“Must be a mistake, then. Oh, well.”

The smooth skin behind Mindy’s ears had pinkened. Milo began paging through his pad. Blank pages. From where Mindy stood, she couldn’t see that. “Here it is… ‘Possible boyfriend.’ ‘Maybe older guy.’ Per MJ.” Looking up, he favored Mindy with an innocent look. “I assumed ‘MJ’ was you, but maybe something got scrambled.”

“Probably.” The flush had spread to Mindy’s jawline.

Milo kicked the wall lightly with the back of his shoe. “Let’s talk theoretically, okay? If Shawna did have an older boyfriend, any idea who he coulda been?”

“How would I know?”

“I just thought, the two of you living together, being close-”

“We lived together, but we weren’t close. Anyway, it was only for a couple of months.”

“So you guys weren’t real friends?” I said.

“We got along but we were different. For one, I was older. A screw-up landed me in a room with a freshman.”

“Different worlds.”

“Exactly,” said Mindy, relieved at being understood.

“Different how?” asked Milo, smiling.

“I’m social,” she said. “I like people, always had lots of friends. Shawna was more of a loner.”

“Interesting trait for a beauty queen.”

“Oh, that – well, that was back in Santo Leon.”

“Didn’t count?”

“No, no, I’m not putting it down – it’s just I gathered that back home Shawna was pretty important, but up here she was just another freshman. I went to Uni, had tons of friends here from high school, she didn’t. I tried to – She didn’t make too many of her own friends. I mean she probably would’ve – it was only the beginning of the quarter.”

“Not too social?” I said.

“Not too.”

“So back in Santo Leon she’d been a big fish in a small pond, but in L.A. she had trouble distinguishing herself.”

“Yes – I mean she was beautiful. But kind of… country. Unsophisticated. Also, her basic personality was – I don’t want to say stuck up, more like private. She did like to keep to herself. Like when Steve would come over, Shawna would ignore him or leave – She said she wanted to give us space. But…”

“You thought maybe she was being a bit antisocial,” I said.

“To be honest? Kind of. That’s why I didn’t pay much attention that night when she left for the library. She was gone a lot.”

“A lot?”

“Yes.”

“Nights?”

“Nights and days. I really didn’t see her much.”

“Did she spend nights away from the dorm?”

“No,” she said. “She always was there in the morning. That’s why when I woke up and she wasn’t, I thought it was weird. But still…”

“Still what?” said Milo.

“I didn’t freak or anything. You know – this was college. We were supposed to be grown-ups.”

Milo twirled his own pen. Blue plastic Bic. “So there was no boyfriend you know of.”

“Right.”

“And this other note I’ve got – about maybe it being an older man. Did Shawna ever say anything about liking older men?”

Mindy’s back was flat against the wall. Another upward glance. Both of her hands clenched the pen.

“Ms. Jacobus-Grieg?”

“Is this – is all this going to be publicized?”

“That’s not our priority.”

“’Cause it was really no big deal. And Agnes…”

“What was no big deal?”

Mindy shook her head. “I told a reporter – some pest from the Cub – and he told the police about a conversation Shawna and I had.”

“A conversation about what?”

“Guys – what girls talk about all the time. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. And that pest shouldn’ve repeated it.”

“Repeated what, Mindy?”

Mindy rubbed one sandal against the other. “I wouldn’t want to ruin Shawna’s reputation.”

“Ruin it in what way?”

“Raising rumors – because what’s the point, a year later? Why should her mom read it and get upset?”

Milo moved closer to her, placed his weight on one foot, looking very tired. “What hurts Mrs. Yeager the most is not knowing what happened to Shawna. That’s the ultimate hell for a parent, so anything you can do to clear it up would be a good deed.”

Mindy bit back tears. “I know, I know, but I’m sure it’s nothing-”

“Indulge us. Unless it leads to a solution, we’ll keep it close to the vest.”

The flush had overtaken Mindy’s face. Coppery glow beneath the tan, but nothing healthy about it.

“It was really just a single conversation,” she said, swiping at her eyes again. “Maybe three weeks into the semester. Steve had a friend who thought Shawna looked hot, and he asked if Shawna wanted to be fixed up. Shawna said no, she had too much studying, but then she went out – and not to the library, this was a Friday morning and she said something had come up suddenly, she had to leave early for the weekend. Something back home in Santo Leon. But the thing is, she was all dressed up and made up – nothing like what you’d expect just to take the bus home. So I asked her who the guy was, said she wasn’t wasting stockings and all that lip gloss on some campus loser. And she gave me this – I can only call it an off look, know what I mean? Real serious – almost angry. But not angry – upset.”

“Like you’d hit a nerve,” I said.

“Exactly. She gave me the off look and said, ‘Mindy, I would never date anyone my age. Give me an older guy anytime, ’cause they know how to treat a woman.’ And that’s when it hit me: the way she was dressed. A suit – all that makeup. It’s like she was trying to make herself look older, so I wondered. And that’s what I told that pest from the Cub. Which is probably what you’ve got in there.”