I looked at the Sonic bag in his hand.“I can tell.Getting that chili dog was a high priority.”
“What’s the matter with that poor young man?”Brother Gary asked.
“He’s gone.He disappeared.Nobody knows where he is.How the fuck do I have to say it?Do I need to write it in curly fries?”
“So he left.”Red Alvin drew a pack of smokes out of his pocket and then didn’t seem to know what to do because he was still holding the Sonic bag in his other hand.He finally used his teeth to grab one of the cigarettes.He spoke around it as he returned the pack to his pocket.“Kids do that, you know.He was having a rough time.It’s summer.He’s not working.He needed a change.”
“Time,” Brother Gary said like a human fucking fortune cookie, “heals all wounds, God willing.”
I stared at him until he closed his mouth.Little pinpricks of sweat showed under the band of his cowboy hat, and I thought I detected some dampness under the arms of his Matlock suit.
“What if something happened to him?”I asked.“What if he hurt himself?”
The jerkoffs traded a look.
“You need to find him, you pair of cumstains!”
“Fuck off,” Red said, on autopilot more than anything.“Look, we’ll call the parents, talk to his friends.What’s the big deal?”
For a moment, my throat was so tight I couldn’t speak.I remembered how it had been those first few weeks.The shock wearing off.Reality setting in.Starting to get my first glimpse of the fact that this was going to be the rest of my life.
“He’s a legal adult,” Brother Gary said.He raised a hand like he wanted to pat my shoulder.“And he told his friends he was leaving—”
“With a goddamn text message?”
“—and if he wants to be left alone, to have some privacy, well, that’s his right.”
“What if this has something to do with how he got hurt?”
Brother Gary wiped sweat from his face and said, “What’s that?Oh, right.Well, yeah, of course.The investigation.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
Red Alvin fished out a lighter, rolled a spark, and lit up.He got the cig going and said on a cloud of smoke, “He’ll come back.”He drew hard again, and the cherry flared.“You gotta stop taking this shit so personally.”
I made my way back to my car and watched them go inside.
And then I screamed and punched the roof of the car until the headliner tore.
That night, while Darnell iced my hand, I tried to think.
Brother Gary and Red Alvin were right, to a point.That was the complex reality of missing persons investigations.People—especially adults—had a right to disappear.So, law enforcement needed a reason to believe something bad had happened.And, more tothe point, law enforcement had to give a rat’s ass.Usually, they gave a rat’s ass because somebody was putting pressure on them.Because somebody wanted the missing person to be found.Jordan was an angry, bitter wreck.Rory was too busy finding his next fuck.
But where were Tip’s parents?
I decided I wanted to find out.
10
The Wheelers lived in a nice-sized ranch in a development that must have been from the ’90s.The brick was hideous, a mix of dark and light, like somebody had used whatever colors were leftover, but otherwise it looked nice—the yard had some crabgrass and a few patches of bare dirt, but it was mowed and edged, and the flowerbeds were the low-maintenance variety but free of weeds.Trees gave plenty of shade; it was almost noon, because it had taken me that long to finish the bare essentials of what I needed to do and come up with an excuse to get away from Palomo.She was a good partner in a lot of ways, but she didn’t fuck around.
The first thing I noticed as I approached the door was that even though it was midday, the porchlights were on.Curtains framed the windows, and on the other side of the glass, the house was dark.Maybe the whole family had left town.Maybe they were on a family vacation.I thought about how Eddie Wheeler had gripped his wife’swrist in the hospital hallway.I thought about how he’d said,His friend.Once, on a family vacation, my dad had gotten so plastered he’d shat himself in the motel pool.I’d had to fish him out because Mom had been busy getting rugburn in the manager’s office.
I knocked, and a moment later, the deadbolt flipped back, and the door opened.Eddie Wheeler stood there, and I got my second look at him.White, early middle age, the stubby sideburns.Today, he looked every painful inch his age: a tank top with the Thin Blue Line design showed off nice shoulders and arms and graying chest hair; Mizzou basketball shorts that hung past his knees; and those straight guy shoes that look like they’re made out of carpet backing.Now that I knew he was Highway Patrol, it made sense—he definitely gave off Daddy Cop vibes.
He said, “Yeah?”
“Mr.Wheeler, we met at the hospital.I’m Gray Dulac with the Wahredua PD.”
