Deke just stared down at his worn shoes.
“When was it that he never got over her?” Cooper asked. Deke was shutting down, and though he didn’t expect miracles, any new information about Emma was worth getting. “Now . . . ?” When Deke didn’t answer he asked, “Or are you talking about when Emma was babysitting and was attacked?” It was a long shot, but like Theo had said, he was very protective of Emma. Sure, it could be because he knew her from the Thrift Shop, but if it was something else, Cooper wanted to know about it.
“My bus left.” Deke looked longingly down the street, where the bus had disappeared around a corner.
“Do you need a ride somewhere?”
Deke squinted and asked again, “What choo want, mister?”
“I’m looking out for Emma, too.”
“You don’t know her,” he said scathingly.
“I do. We went to school together. We were classmates.”
Deke licked his dry lips. “I’m goin’ to the Logger Room. Jes down the street. You could gimme a ride there.”
“Where do you live? I’ll drop you there.”
Deke snorted. “You jes leave me be, mister.”
At that point, Deke got up and started shuffling away. Cooper tried to get him to get in his car, but he’d decided he’d had enough and flapped his hand at him and went on. The Logger Room was probably a mile away, across the line into Portland. Cooper didn’t see how the management was likely to let him in, given his smell and dishevelment.
“What’s your full name?” Cooper called after him. Deke didn’t answer. Just kept walking.
“If you know something about Emma, something that would help her, I’d like to know it, too,” Cooper called after him.
Deke didn’t respond, and Cooper was torn between following him on foot and climbing into the SUV and picking him up.
His cell buzzed at that moment and he saw it was Jamie. He answered, “Hey, can I call you back? I’m in the middle of something.”
“Yes. But I think some of the senior boys might have been scaring Marissa on Saturday night.”
Cooper’s attention snapped to the phone. “What?” he demanded. Jamie repeated what she’d said as his mind whirred to catch up. “You think one of them scared her into the bedroom?”
“I just think they were there. I substituted today and overheard some things, and then I talked to the girls.”
“Is Marissa with you?”
“She’s with her mom now. Harley’s with me.”
“Does Laura know this?”
“Yes. Marissa said she wanted to talk to you, not anyone else. We were all at the school at the same time.”
He could just imagine that confab. “I’ll come by to see you later,” he clipped out. “I’m going to follow up.”
“Okay.”
Cooper clicked off and climbed back into his Explorer. Deke was working his way down the street toward the bar. He wanted to follow up with the guy. Maybe he knew something. Maybe he didn’t. Either way, now was not the time. He was angry, and not sure at whom. The senior boys, for certain, but even more so at himself. He’d been with friends trying to spook Emma and tragedy had struck. Now history had repeated itself. He was lucky . . . they were all lucky . . . that Marissa was okay.
Cooper threw a last glance at Deke in time to see him suddenly topple over and collapse in a heap halfway into the road. “Shit,” he muttered, then punched the accelerator in order to get to him before he was hit by a passing car.
Chapter Nineteen
It took Cooper an extra hour before he could get home after calling for an ambulance to take Deke, who was unconscious, to Glen Gen Emergency and extricate himself from the event. One look at Deke and the ER staff hurried him to a partitioned room and started an IV. “He’s been here multiple times,” a male doctor in his forties with a hangdog face told Cooper.
“You know his full name?”
“Deke Girard. He sobers up and then falls off the wagon, but it’s less sobering up lately.”
Cooper said, “He passed out while walking.”
The doctor, Dr. Wertz according to his name tag, admitted, “He doesn’t look good.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he doesn’t look good,” he repeated. “He’s on a downward trajectory.”
“Does he have any family?”
“He has a girlfriend. I don’t know her name. It’s in his file and she’ll be called if she hasn’t been already.”
“I’d like to talk to him some more.”
“As soon as he’s stabilized and awake.”
Cooper nodded. The doctor’s abrupt manner may have been his normal way, but the ER was busy this afternoon. An early Halloween party had apparently resulted in a collapse of a Halloween display that had landed on several children, causing contusions and minor burns from the look of it, and one adult with broken fingers. The cacophony in the waiting room was from angry parents who all apparently wanted to blame the guy with the broken fingers. He looked a little dazed and smelled of beer. The angry parents seemed alcohol-fueled as well.
“Can I get someone to call me when that happens?” Cooper asked, pulling out a card.
“Do you mind giving it to Darla?” He jerked his head to indicate a woman at the intake desk.
Cooper went over to her. He waited in line rather than interrupt the tearful mom who was telling her about the burn on her daughter’s arm from the candle wax inside the huge, “enormous” pumpkin, whose weight, apparently, was the source of the crashed display. The daughter, who looked to be about eight, sat by, her eyes large. Her right arm was covered by a cold pack that she was holding in place. As Cooper waited, the daughter lifted the pack and examined the red spot. Painful, he believed, but it looked superficial, luckily. He was no doctor, but he’d seen a really bad burn or two.
When it was his turn, he showed his badge and gave Darla the same request he’d given Dr. Wertz. Darla assured him that she would
