Роберт Паркер - The Bitterest Pill

Maryglenn nodded in understanding. With her hand on the door, she turned back to Jesse. “I’m not very good at this... but can I buy you a drink sometime? I mean, we’ve been dancing around each other for months and I don’t enjoy this kind of dancing very much.”

“Not a drink. I don’t drink anymore.” He felt both silly and proud saying it.

That didn’t scare her off. “Dinner, then?”

“I’d like that.”

“What’s your phone number?”

He smiled. “Nine-one-one.”

“A wiseass, huh?”

He handed her one of his cards with his cell number on it. “If you hear anything else about Heather, anything at all, call me about that, too.”

After Maryglenn disappeared behind the classroom door, he stood in the hallway, remembering that long-ago case and how hesitant people were to speak ill of the dead.

When he got off the bus and saw the police chief’s Explorer parked out in front of Paradise High, he decided to ditch school and walked around to the athletic field. He’d heard about Heather but hadn’t expected the cops to already be sniffing around. He knew they would come eventually. Where else are the cops going to look?

Under the stands of the stadium, he punched in a number on that week’s new burner phone. New phone every week. Sometimes two a week. That was how it worked. No one picked up on the other end and he didn’t leave a message. That was how that worked, too. In five minutes or so, he’d get a call back.

In the meantime, he lit a cigarette, blew the smoke out the other side of his mouth, and peered through the empty spaces in the aluminum bleachers. One gangly, pimply-faced kid in a PARADISE HIGH PANTHERS JV track shirt ran a slow lap around the dark red track. As he puffed on his cigarette, watching the kid’s awkward, loping strides, he remembered his own freshman year, sitting in the stands under which he now stood. He recalled those stupid pep rallies. He hated all that school spirit, rah-rah bullshit. But he didn’t hate looking at the cheerleaders and the majorettes. No, sir, he did not. He remembered the first time he ever saw Heather, how he thought she was looking up into the stands right at him, but when she waved, he realized she was waving at the junior sitting directly behind him. He heard the junior lean over to his buddies and call him a dork. As if any girl as hot as Heather Mackey would wave at him. Doofus. Still hurt him to think about it. He crushed the cigarette out beneath his foot.

Heather had always been nice to him, though. She wasn’t stuck up or anything, in spite of being so pretty and popular. He’d always wanted to ask her out but never had the nerve. He knew he wasn’t bad-looking and that he wasn’t anything like his freshman self, the doofus in the stands. The braces were gone, his voice was deep, no longer cracking when he got worked up. He’d grown into his body and a few girls in school had said he had the most beautiful deep blue eyes.

He remembered the first day of school this year, when she came over to him at his locker. She put her hand on his wrist and stared right into his eyes. And he thought, stupidly, Is she looking at me or the guy behind me? But she wasn’t. She couldn’t have been, because the only thing behind him was his open locker door. Then she brushed her hand across his cheek.

“We can’t talk now,” Heather had said, “but can we meet later, after school? Please.”

His heart was beating so hard, the sound of blood rushing so loudly in his ears, he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. And then, when he convinced himself that he had heard her, he could barely speak.

“Sure.” It was the best he could manage.

“Where?”

“Come to my house,” she said. “My folks won’t be home and we can, you know, talk.”

Even as he was celebrating in his head, fighting the desire to click his heels and scream or to run to tell his friends that he would finally be with the girl he had dreamed about since his first day as a freshman, he knew there was something in her eyes besides wanting him. It was a very different kind of wanting. He knew what it was. Since he’d begun working for Arakel, he’d seen it many times: desperation. With some of the others, he hadn’t even bothered to pretend and had slept with them. He had never forced himself on anyone or made it conditional. He had learned at an earlier age than most what desperation does to people. But with Heather, he wanted to pretend it was something more than that.

He remembered that when he came to her house that day, she was dressed in a black satin blouse and stilettos, nothing else. Remembered the feel of the satin. She didn’t waste time getting him upstairs and into her room. And he was grateful that when she moaned she didn’t make it feel like a transaction. Heather hadn’t asked for anything until he was sore and coming out of her shower, mopping his hair with a bath towel. The truth was, he had hated washing the scent of her off him. She was everything he had ever fantasized about her and more. Still, he knew what was coming. He couldn’t bear to hear her ask. Instead, he placed a small vial of pills on her nightstand. When she started to speak, he kissed her.

“Shhh,” he said, when she tried to speak again. “But I do need the money.”

That wasn’t a problem.

As he left, she grabbed his hand. “I wanted to be with you,” she said. “This wasn’t about... you know. At least not all of it. We can do it again. I loved the way you tasted and how you felt inside me.”

He had never gone back to her bedroom. If she hadn’t said that last thing, he might have. But once she said it, there was no pretending. He’d felt dirty about it ever since.

When the phone rang in his pocket, he realized he was crying and that he would never see her again. He could never let her pretend to like him. He picked up.

“Kid, are you all right? What is wrong?”

“I’m good. I just got a cold.”

“Why do you call?”

“One of my, um, clients... she died last night.”

There was a long, loud silence on the line. Then, “Who?”

“A girl from my school.”

“What were you giving to her?”

“Talcum powder.”

“The cheap powder or the expensive?” Arakel asked.

“The cheap shit.” He lied but didn’t know what else to say. The truth was Heather had asked for the strongest stuff he had. She’d promised to be careful and to dose it out wisely. He was stupid to do as she asked, but when it came to Heather, he could never think straight. Now she was dead. He’d figure something out to cover his ass. Maybe he’d blame it on wrong packaging or say she stole the stronger stuff out of his stash. For now, he was just buying time.

“Okay, kid. You must remember, the good talcum is only for the very wet. Stay on low profile for a few days. Give people only what is necessary for staying dry. No more than that.”

“I understand.”

“Today, get a new phone.”

The line went dead and he went back to crying.

By one that afternoon, Jesse had spoken to all the teachers on the list except for Heather’s cheerleading coach, Brandy Lawton. He figured he would catch up with her eventually or just put in a call to her. Some of the teachers he did speak to said they had noticed the same things about Heather Mackey that Maryglenn had alluded to, that she had seemed withdrawn and distracted. But others hadn’t noticed any change at all. Oh, not at all, Chief. Heather was still the enthusiastic, intelligent young woman I have always known her to be. They were all very troubled by her death, some so much that they broke down during the conversations. And they all mentioned Heather’s circle of friends: Megan, Darby, and Richie.