He turned, shoving the small piece of paper down into his pocket and began to walk back down the driveway, his frown weighing down his face like an anchor.
“Young man?” came a squawky, parrot-like voice from behind him. He stopped in his tracks, all of the colour draining from his face until he looked like the paper he’d just shoved into his pocket.
He turned slowly and saw an elderly woman’s head sticking out through the front door of the house, looking at him. Her face looked for the world like melted wax, drawn out as far as it could go. There was still some up-lift around the eyes, giving her friendly cheekbones. Her eyes were black and sunk deep into her withered head, but there was still a mischievous twinkle in them, a gleam of youth left in her. She had curly, thin silver hair that Mike thought was the standard for all little old ladies, wondering if somewhere they were cloning that hairstyle and sending it to them by mail. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, realizing that he’d been staring. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“You didn’t,” she said bluntly. She looked as though she might slam the door tight right then and there, but then a smile spread across her face, revealing false teeth that couldn’t have been properly glued in. “But I was wondering if you were going to stand out there all day, or if you were going to come in?”
Mike smiled, then hopped up the stairs to the entrance two by two.
She poured the coffee into a small cup for him right next to hers and offered him the sugar bowl, which he refused. He added a splash of milk for colour, then brought the liquid up to his lips. “This is a beautiful home you have, Miss O’Grady,” Mike said politely, the hot liquid burning his lips and making him put it back down onto its saucer.
“Liar,” she said simply, but that smile gave her away again. “I’ve been trying to get around to changing the colour for years, but I can’t find the time. I think I’d like it yellow. Or pink, maybe,” she rambled, her voice very nasal to the point that Mike almost needed to rub his ears to alleviate the pressure. “And it’s August. Nobody has called me Miss O’ Grady since I was back at the school,”
Mike nodded. “Thank you, August,” he said honestly, gazing about at the little white doylies that were thrown about everywhere. “Actually, that’s kind of what I needed to talk to you about, your old days at Coral Beach High--”
“Horrible place,” she interrupted, her voice shaken and unsettling. “I’ll never go back there again. Horrible things happen in those halls, Michael. I didn’t condone absence back in my day... but after what I’ve seen in my tenure, I wouldn’t dare make a child step foot through those doors if they had the strength of mind not to.”
Mike nodded knowingly, then spotted anti-psychotic medication resting on her kitchen counter. The pill bottle was almost behind her microwave, leaning against the plug with its childproof cap. Still, a crazy woman who is right is still right, isn’t she? he thought, turning back to meet her eyes. “I know.”
“Those deaths. They wouldn’t have happened anywhere else.”
“I know,” Mike agreed, ever more readily, his eyes taking on a darker shade. “Something happened to one of the young girls there the other day -- and I think you might know the two boys responsible for it.”
“Me?” August asked, a puzzled looked coming over her. “Why in heavens would I know them?”
“I think they spent time with you, a lot of it. Allan Bishop and Bram Raine?”
She turned ghostly white, staring at him for a long moment. “Is this some kind of sick joke?” she accused, her voice bitter and having lost some of its nasal attribute.
“N-no... I...” he stammered, setting down his coffee and standing, backing up a pace. “They did something. Something horrible. There’s no mention of them in any of your old files, so I -“
“No mention?” she repeated, and her menacing attitude melted into a hysterical laughter. “My boy, you had me plum fooled! But there were stacks of paperwork on those two. It was enough for a small novel! We even started filing them together, so that it’d save time during their daily visits to me!” She stopped laughing abruptly. When she spoke again, her voice sounded dead, her eyes void of emotion. “What would anyone ever want with those boys? You run along now...” She got up and shooed Mike toward the door.
He stepped outside, huffing the entire way. When she was about to slam the door on his nose, he quickly reached inside of his coat pocket and pulled out the picture of Julie Peterson that he had torn from the yearbook. “I don’t give a shit about them, lady. Or you, for that matter. I care about what happened to this girl.”
She shook her head and continued to close the door.
“Look at the picture!” he shouted. The sound startled her, forcing her to see the image for the first time. “They say that she’ll never have children now. That’s how badly they messed her up. That’s what they did to her body.” He stopped yelling and looked down at the ground, then tucked the photo back inside his pocket. He looked around anxiously, pressing his lips together and shrugging wide in desperation. “Doesn’t anybody care?”
August looked at him for a long while, then took a slip of paper out of her blouse and
