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He nodded numbly, wanting to believe that Brett didn’t mean any of this, but unable to.
“This, though…” She, too, gazed at Brett’s journal. “It shocked me.”
Craig shook his head. “He must have known you’d read it.”
“Yes, and that’s what gives me hope. I think he must want an adult to know what he’s thinking and feeling.”
“He could have told me.”
“Maybe,” she said, “he wants to be strong for you.”
Maybe he did. Craig remembered the clean bedroom, the folded laundry, the help raking the lawn and vacuuming the living room. Brett didn’t even ask about his mother often, he went on as if, on the surface, nothing had changed.
“I suggested counseling. Six or eight months ago. After he started picking fights.” He had to breathe deeply a couple of times. “He said no. He was okay.” His mouth worked. “He’s not okay.”
“No. He’s not.”
“Thank you, Ms. McKinnon.” Craig blundered to his feet. “You undoubtedly want him out of your classroom and this school. I don’t blame you.”
She shook her head and said firmly, “Please sit down. I don’t want Brett to go anywhere.”
Craig stared at her now determined face.
“This,” she nodded again at the notebook, “suggests he is quite troubled. But he’s only eleven years old. He has plenty of reason to be angry. What he’s feeling isn’t irrational. The other children do stare and whisper, in part because his attitude invites it. But, in fairness to Brett, that’s not the whole story. Ryan Durney did suggest that—” Here she faltered.
“I’m a murderer.”
“Um…” Her gaze shied. “Something like that. Ryan warned a girl away from Brett, suggesting that…”
“He’s just like me.” Craig swore under his breath.
“The sad thing is that Ryan isn’t an unusually cruel boy. They taunt each other at this age, the boys in particular. They…hunt for weaknesses, in themselves as much as in the others. I really believe if Brett had fought back in a different way, if from the beginning he’d said, ‘Jeez, I know my mom took off. I don’t know what that cop’s problem is,’ the other boys would have dropped it.”
“But they smelled blood.”
“Exactly.”
He sat in silence, feeling defeated.
“I strongly recommend counseling,” Ms. McKinnon said.
Craig nodded. “Do I tell him you showed me this?”
“Why not? I warned the students that what they wrote wouldn’t be private. If he doesn’t know how inappropriate his thoughts and fantasies are, it’s time he finds out.”
“Damn straight,” Craig muttered.
Voice tentative, she said, “I assume there’s a reason you haven’t moved to a community where you can make a fresh start.”
“We’ve been strongly encouraged to stay put.” He made sure she heard the irony.
“I see.”
Weirdly, in the midst of his turmoil, Craig was distracted by the swing of her ponytail when she nodded, the way light from the overhead fluorescent fixture shimmered from it. He realized he was staring and made himself look away, at the blackboard.
“I talked to the administration in Salmon Creek about moving Brett, but they turned me down.”
“They’re desperate to pass a bond issue, and classrooms are bulging. I’m not surprised.”
His impression had been that they hadn’t wanted Brett and his problems. But he kept that to himself. “I even looked into the Christian school here in town, but they let me know that they thought Brett’s presence would be disruptive.” If he’d been a member of their church, it might have been different, they’d implied. He didn’t buy that.
His son’s teacher asked, “How is your relationship with Brett?”
“Actually…” He cleared his throat. “Actually, it’s pretty good. We went fishing Saturday. He helped me around the house yesterday.”
“Is he involved in any activities with kids his age outside school? At church? Does he still play sports?”
Craig shook his head. “Everything just went by the wayside….”
She nibbled on her lip in a way that distracted him as much as her glorious, shining hair. “Can you encourage him to take up an activity again? Or is that impossible because of your job?”
“My father would chauffeur Brett.” His voice scraped. “But who would have him?”
Her startled expression told him she still didn’t get it.
“Try to imagine.” Baring himself like this was humiliating, but he didn’t see any choice. “I call a Boy Scout leader and say, ‘Hi, I’m under investigation for murdering my wife, but I’m hoping you’ll welcome my son into your troop. By the way, he’s having fantasies about murdering everyone he doesn’t like, but I know he’ll have a great time learning to tie knots.’”
Robin McKinnon stared at him for a long time, not saying a word. He shifted uncomfortably.
Then, briskly, she said, “I don’t see why he wouldn’t be welcome on his old soccer team. Will you bring him?”
Craig blinked. “The season’s already started.”
“I remember him being quite talented. We could use another goalie.”
“But…”
“I’ll speak to the coach and call you.”
He still seemed to be stuttering.
“The team practices five days a week. Games every Saturday and we’ll probably enter tournaments into November. I really do believe it would be good for Brett.”
“If Brett’s forced on the other boys…”
“Remember, most of the boys are from Salmon Creek, not Klickitat. Since Brett and Abby don’t go to school there, I suspect most people will have forgotten all the talk.” Because the Lofgrens actually lived on the outskirts of the school district, the playfields for the Salmon Creek team had been closer. “I know Malcolm will be pleased to see Brett again.” Her tone said he’d darn well better. “The others will follow his example.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that,” she agreed.
Shaking his head at her astounding blend of naiveté and kindness, Craig stood. “If he’s welcome, I’ll bring him.” His voice hardened. “If he’s not, please don’t set him up for another fall.”
She rose to her feet, too. “I understand.”
“Thank you, Ms. McKinnon. I’m grateful that you got in touch. And—” the words seemed to snag in his throat “—that you are willing to give him a chance.”
She smiled at him for the first time, momentarily becoming beautiful. “I never give up on my students, Mr. Lofgren. As you will find.”
Was that a promise? he wondered, walking back through the school halls. Or a warning?
CHAPTER THREE
“DAD, I GOT PROMOTED to Homicide today.”
Ann Caldwell stood beside her father’s grave. She hadn’t brought flowers, which were allowed only on specific holidays. Instead, she stood straight, as if awaiting inspection, feet braced and hands clasped behind her back. The hot September sun baked her.
Today had been the last day she needed to wear her uniform to work, a thought that brought both pride and a fluttery sense of anxiety. Her uniform defined her in ways she knew to be unhealthy. But she had badly wanted this promotion, so that she could finish her father’s work.
Make him proud.
“I’m opening the Lofgren file tomorrow. He won’t get away with murdering his wife. I promise.”
Hearing footsteps and the low murmur of voices, she bowed her head and stayed silent until a middle-aged couple passed, holding hands. She felt their curious glances, and knew it was the uniform that drew them. The uniform that she wore because she had followed in her father’s footsteps.
When she heard car doors open and slam shut, she focused again on the velvet green sod, laid like a carpet since this earth had been opened only ten days ago to receive her father’s body. If she searched, she could find the seam where roots had not yet entangled with other roots. But as she’d approached the grave earlier, she had felt a massive sense of disorientation. The ground should be raw. Dad was barely gone! Instead, he might have lain here for a year, or ten years. He might never have seen her receive her badge, or the commendations that she had believed—oh, with her whole heart!—would make him smile and say, “You’re a chip off the old block.” Or, “You made me proud today, girl.”
“I asked to take over your cases, Dad,” she told the green swale interrupted only by the brass plaque. “I can finish what you started. I won’t be working with Reggie. He’s going to be taking a desk job. Can you believe it? Big Reggie Roarke pushing paper? But he says he has high blood pressure and he figures this is the time. I’ve been assigned to Diaz.”
A man eight or ten years older than her, Juan Diaz had looked her up and down with critical dark eyes and then shrugged. “Here’s hoping you’ve got half your old man’s goods.”
She had felt a tremor inside, a moment of doubt she rarely allowed herself. Then she’d given him a steady gaze. “We’ll see, won’t we?”
She’d show him. He couldn’t be half as hard to please as her father had been.
“Well.” Ann took a deep breath. “That’s all I came to say. Someday I’ll be back to tell you I’ve arrested Craig Lofgren. I’ll put him away.”
This one had mattered a whole lot to her father. More than she’d ever quite understood, except that he’d boiled at what he’d called “rich boy crime.”
“They think they’re above the law,” he’d ranted. “They dress good and they hire fancy lawyers and somehow they walk. They don’t look like criminals. I could see in this bastard’s eyes that he didn’t even think I’d suspect him. After all, he’d called us, hadn’t he? Full of concern. Where could she be? But he knew. By God I could feel it. He knew the whole time.”
Dad knew, too. Julie Lofgren was dead, slain by her husband’s hand. But proving what he knew was another matter. He had to find her body. Even some blood. A witness. Something.
It ate at him, that good-looking airline pilot who must make $200,000 a year but wouldn’t let his wife go. Didn’t want to pay alimony, or maybe his pride was just stung. Could be he was one of those men who refused to lose anything that had once been his. Didn’t much matter why he’d killed her rather than grant her request for a divorce.
What did matter was his cocky attitude. In every way but words he let the cops know they couldn’t touch him.
Ann had seen pictures of him, handsome and smug. Tomorrow she was going to open the fat manila folder that held photos, reports and her dad’s notes. As soon as possible, she’d visit Pilot Craig Lofgren and let him know that someone was still watching, still waiting. Maybe she could shake him up a little.
Aloud she said, “Julie Lofgren deserves a grave, too. When she has one, I’ll put flowers on it for you.”
Then, having finished what she came to say, Ann walked back across the grass to her car. She felt stronger for having put into words what she meant to do.
Solving the mystery of Julie Lofgren’s disappearance would end any doubts—other people’s and her own—about whether she was anywhere near the cop her father had been. Even Dad would have had to concede that if she could accomplish what he couldn’t, she’d have earned her badge and more.
After unlocking her car door, Ann took one last look at the curving slope of old trees and new graves.
Even Dad, she thought one more time, would see that a woman could do this job, and do it well.
THAT VERY SAME EVENING after she’d talked with him at school, Robin called Craig Lofgren. She dialed the minute she hung up the phone from talking to Ralph.
The soccer coach had been doubtful but willing. “Yeah, yeah, the kid was good,” he’d said. “But if he makes trouble, he’s off the team.”
“Deal,” she had agreed.
In the middle of the second ring, someone picked up the phone. “Hello?” said a high girl’s voice.
“May I speak to your father?”
“Who is calling, please?”
Robin smiled at the child’s by-rote manners. “Robin McKinnon. Brett’s teacher.”
“Ohh! Is Brett in trouble? I’ll get Daddy.”
He came on a minute later, sounding guarded. “Ms. McKinnon?”
“Please, call me Robin.” Alarm flared in her chest. What? She was trying to get friendly with a man who might have killed his wife? She cleared her throat. “Um, I spoke to the coach. He says it’s fine if Brett wants to rejoin the team.”
“Really?” Craig Lofgren sounded stunned.
“You didn’t think he’d agree,” she realized. Or did he not think she’d even bother to ask?
After a moment, he said, “No. I didn’t.”
Something in his voice gave her pause: a kind of grief, perhaps, that she had never heard before. The truth was, he didn’t expect anyone to give his kids a fair shake. The understanding made her sad and even more determined.
“Will you talk to Brett? The sooner he starts practice, the better. He’s already missed two games.” She hesitated. “The coach doesn’t promise a lot of playing time. Since he’s so late starting.”
“Brett will understand. The others have earned their positions.” He was quiet for a minute. “I talked to Brett about his journal. He claims to have been venting.”
“I showed it to the principal,” Robin told him. “I had to, you know.”
“Is he going to expel Brett?”
“No. I persuaded him to let me handle the situation, for now. He does insist on a psychological evaluation.”
Craig swore.
Robin clutched the phone. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” His voice was deep, raw. “You’re going out of your way to help. I shouldn’t have said that.” He paused. “He may even be right.”
She hated to concede that Brett could be so troubled. Robin feared her own guilt was manipulating her in uncomfortable ways. She had failed him, so now she had to make him better. But if he wasn’t really disturbed, that meant what she had or hadn’t done wasn’t very important. For entirely selfish reasons, she needed this one sullen boy to be okay.
And she hated to admit even to herself that her motives were at least partly self-centered.
She told the boy’s father which field practice would be held on and what time they started. “Will you be able to bring him tomorrow?”
“I fly out in the morning. My father stays with the kids. I’ll ask him.”
“Good. I’ll look for Brett.”
“Thank you,” Craig said, with a depth of emotion impossible not to hear.
“It wasn’t any huge effort. I’m just…nudging.” That was how she often thought of her job: tiny prods, scarcely noticed, that gradually steered kids in a different direction, or made their parents react differently. She couldn’t demand, couldn’t order, couldn’t produce revelations that would change people’s lives. What she could do was nudge. “But you’re welcome,” she added.
“Will you let me know how the week goes?”
“Of course I will.” She had a thought. “In fact, I’ll e-mail you, if you like. Brett supplied your address for school records. I don’t know if you check it when you’re out of town…”
“I do, when I can.”
“Then I’ll give you an objective view of how the first practice goes.”
“Great. Thank you,” he said again.
At school the next day, Brett was quiet and withdrawn, but he did get a 90% on a pop spelling quiz. She smiled at him when she handed the graded quizzes out after lunch. Robin thought she saw a quick flush of pleasure on his face.
She’d already talked to her son about Brett, but she repeated herself on the way to practice that afternoon.
“Brett may not want to come back if he feels ignored.”
“Mom…”
She frowned at a red light. They couldn’t be late today. Not today! They just had to be at the field ahead of Brett and his grandfather. “You’ll kind of stick with him, right? Make sure he’s not sitting off by himself?”
“Mom…”
The light finally—finally!—turned green and she rocketed forward, ignoring her son’s exaggerated grip on the armrest. “His soccer skills may be rusty. Maybe you could give him tips. Not obviously. Make it casual, so he’s not embarrassed, but…”
“Mom!”
“What?” Startled, she shot a glance at her lanky, almost-twelve-year-old son, who was tugging wildly at his brown hair.
“I heard you the first time! Brett’s cool. Okay? Nobody’s going to ignore him. Jeez, Mom. It’s not like we stand around. We’ll be doing drills or running laps. Okay?”
She took a deep breath. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m just kind of nervous about this. Since I set it up.”
“I can tell,” he said with heavy irony.
Robin grinned at him. “Have I mentioned lately that I love you?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, like, ten times a day.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t say that in front of anybody.”
“I’m not a complete idiot.”
They both laughed. He trusted her; she trusted him.
They turned into the gravel parking lot and crunched their way to the far end, closest to today’s field. Malcolm leaped out, freed his soccer ball from its net bag and tossed it to the grass. Turning back, he grabbed his water bottle.
Robin popped the trunk and pulled out her lawn chair and the tote bag in which she carried a book and a can of soda. Just as she slammed the trunk, a red Honda van pulled into the next slot.
A dizzying sense of déjà vu swept over her. Julie would leap out, calling out, “We made it! Hold up, and we can walk over together.”
Julie had loved her van for everything she could pack into it and for its shiny strawberry-red color. She’d always been willing to drive to any activity, to run anybody’s kid home, to whisk across town for someone’s forgotten shin guards or jersey. She was every team mother, every room mother.
Robin felt a painful squeeze in her chest, as if only at this moment did she understand that her cheerful, generous friend was truly gone.
How? Why? she begged incoherently, knowing there would be no answers. And then, I’m trying to take care of him. She tried to tell Julie, hoping she could somehow hear, know.
Out of the driver’s side climbed an older man who looked a great deal like his son. Robin remembered seeing him at games, although he’d tended to be down on the sideline rather than sitting in the bleachers with her and Julie. With dark hair cut short and an erect carriage, he had the air of retired military. Wearing a polo shirt and shorts, he glanced around, his expression wary when he met Robin’s gaze.
“Mr. Lofgren?”
“Yes?”
She smiled. “I know we’ve met before. I’m Robin McKinnon. Brett’s teacher this year. This…” she turned in search of him, “is my son, Malcolm, who has grown about a foot since you last saw him.”
Brett’s grandfather, too, smiled, his face relaxing. “Robin. Malcolm. I remember you.” He nodded at the lawn chair. “Do you watch practice?”
“Yes, usually, unless I have quick errands to run.”
“Ah. I wondered if I should stay.”
Brett and a pretty, younger girl had gotten out, the girl looking around curiously, Brett pretending he hadn’t noticed anybody else’s presence.
“Hey!” Malcolm said. “It’s great you’re joining the team. We missed you.”
Bless him, Robin thought. The speech was unusually loquacious for an eleven-year-old boy. They seemed to communicate mainly in grunts and raucous laughs. Malcolm had been listening to her.
Brett pretended to look surprised to see her son. “Hey,” he said in response.
“Come on.” Mal jerked his head. “You know how Coach feels about us being late.”
Brett grimaced. “Yeah, I remember.”
Kicking their soccer balls before them, the two boys struck off across the field. They were a handsome pair, both tall and athletic in their shorts, shin guards and loose-fitting T’s.
Beside her, Brett’s grandfather said, “This was nice of you.”
“I hope it works out,” she worried.
“Your boy looks like a nice kid.”
Now she smiled. “He is.” She surveyed the little girl, who waited gravely to one side. “Wow, you’ve grown, Abby.”
The girl grinned. “I’m in fourth grade this year.”
As they started walking after the boys, Robin said, “I hear you have Mrs. Jensen.”
“She’s really nice.”
“You’re lucky. Just between you and me, I think she’s the best fourth grade teacher in the building.”
“My best friend’s in her class, too.”
They continued chatting, Abby telling her artlessly about Summer, whose mom said maybe they could go to the water slides at Wild Waves next weekend and if they did Abby could come for sure. Abby got a little shy when she saw other younger siblings playing under the trees at one end of the giant soccer field. A couple of the ones close to her age were hanging from a low, well-worn limb on the sycamore.
Her grandfather said, “Why don’t you go see what they’re up to. Unless you want to watch Brett.”
She wrinkled her nose, hesitated, then sidled over to the trees. Robin saw that she was quickly absorbed by the small crowd of kids ranging from four- or five-year-olds up to a ten-year-old sister who bossed the rest around.
On seeing the new arrivals, Coach Pearce slapped Brett on the back and said, “Hope you’ve been staying active,” and ordered the whole team to take two laps of the field.
Brett loped beside Malcolm, the two finishing near the head of the string of boys.
Robin set up her lawn chair near the picnic table and several other mothers. Brett’s grandfather shook hands all around. The others seemed momentarily startled, turned to look at Brett, but smiled and included the boy’s grandfather in their idle conversation.
Robin paid more attention to Brett’s play than she did to her son’s. Brett wasn’t as rusty as she would have expected. He must at least have been kicking the ball around. He couldn’t have tossed it in a closet and left it there, or he wouldn’t have been dribbling the ball deftly between cones, heading it to other players, passing with fair accuracy when he and another player raced down the field exchanging the ball.
He acquitted himself well when they scrimmaged, too. By the end of practice, he was as sweaty as the rest of the boys and was in the midst of them when they grabbed water bottles and drained them, listening while Coach mentioned a few weaknesses and said, “We’re playing Puyallup Saturday and they went undefeated last year. Let’s make sure they don’t repeat that feat this year, shall we?”
“Yeah!” The boys high fived.
“Good practice,” the coach finished briskly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The cluster broke up into twos and threes that started toward the parents on the sideline and the parking lot where others would be pulling in to pick up offspring.
“Brett,” Coach added, “I want to talk to you before you go.”
In the act of folding her chair, Robin froze. Oh, no! Had Brett not done as well as she’d thought? She saw the boy’s face go expressionless in a way she’d seen every day in school and come to dread.
“Sure,” he said, shrugging as if he didn’t care.
Malcolm hung back, too.
Stacking cones, the Coach said, “I’d like to try you out at goalie tomorrow. You still interested in playing the position?”
“Yeah! Sure. That’s cool!” His back was to Robin, but she heard the animation in his voice, saw the way his shoulders relaxed.
She relaxed, too, and smiled at his grandfather who had also been listening. “He did great today.”
She repeated the compliment to Brett as the two families walked back to the parking lot together.
Mal scoffed, “Nah, he was so slow I could have stolen the ball from him any time I wanted.” His foot shot out.
Brett turned his body, blocking the steal and then going for Malcolm’s ball. After roughhousing the entire way, the two boys were grinning when they reached the cars.
“See you tomorrow!” her son called as they separated.
“Yeah.” Brett picked up his ball. “Tomorrow.”
There was hope in the way he said the word, and a little bit of surprise. As if he hadn’t anticipated tomorrow in a long while.
Robin had to blink some moisture from her eyes before she could unlock the car.
That night, after Malcolm had gone to bed, she sat at her computer and typed an e-mail, deleting and correcting half a dozen times, as if she were writing the cover letter for a grant application.