Max Collins - Girl Most Likely

“Let Booker handle it,” he said. “You’ve had a long day. Go home and get some sleep. We have things to do tomorrow.”

“Now you’re ordering the chief of police around?”

“I’m telling little Krista Larson. Do as your daddy says.”

She saluted and, in her best Charlie Chan’s number one daughter — style, said, “Okay, Pop.”

Ten minutes later she was pulling her Toyota into the brick drive at home. She got out, locked the car with the fob, then walked over to the back door, the kitchen entrance, which both she and her dad almost always used.

The front porch — with its view of the downtown, broken by church steeples, and the river beyond that — was for sitting and taking it all in... at a different time of year. But soon enough it would warm up and she and Pop would be sitting in rockers with iced tea or lemonade or more likely Carlsbergs.

She was unlocking the door when the male voice startled her.

“Krista!”

He came walking up from the street, first in shadow from a tree, then distinct in the combined glow of moon and street light. His car was parked across the way.

Josh Webster.

Jessy’s Josh. Ambling toward her in a blue sweatshirt with red letters (ALL AMERICAN) over white ones (POPCORN STORE), tan khakis, and white sneakers. He came up to her and she knew at once he and his crew had made a batch of cheese corn today.

“You got a few minutes?” he asked shyly.

He had a nice half smile and even now, smelling of his business, borderline pudgy, this remained the handsome guy with dark blue eyes and blond hair who had made many a GHS girl’s heart flutter. Including a cheerleader named Jessica Dolan.

“Sure,” Krista said. “What’s up?”

He nodded toward the house, frowned just a little. “Is, uh... Mr. Larson home?”

“Not right now,” she said, and for some reason didn’t go any further.

“Good,” he said.

“Good?”

“This is private. Personal. I mean, you can tell him, if you like. That’s up to you. But I think it’d just about kill me to have to sit and tell you with him listening in.”

“Starting to sound serious, Josh.”

“It kind of is,” he said, and shrugged. He seemed embarrassed. Or was he... ashamed?

Suddenly she was glad the Glock 21 was on her hip. Maybe that was stupid — this was Josh, for Pete’s sake! — but what her father had told her was fresh in her mind. That the killer probably visited his victims in a friendly way before calling back later with a butcher knife.

She went to the door and unlocked it.

“Go on in,” she said, gesturing for him to lead the way.

Soon they were sitting at the same end of the table where she and her father took their meals.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “I have some Coors Light I’m trying to get rid of. And Carlsberg is the house favorite.”

He smiled a little, her friendliness seeming to put him at ease some. “I’d take a Coors Light off your hands.”

She got it for him, nothing for herself. Then she sat, resting her left hand on the table and keeping her right hand in her lap. Near the holstered Glock.

He gulped a couple of swallows. He was looking straight ahead, not to his left where she sat. He rarely blinked. His mouth moved around, like he was trying to say something but his lips were glued shut. In the silly sweatshirt, he looked like a big kid.

Finally he said, “There are some things you should know.”

“I could stand to know a lot of things,” she said with a smile. It was a remark that would work if this were about nothing. But she already thought it was about something...

He said, “Some of what you need to know?... I don’t want you to talk to Jessy about. If you can manage it. I mean, if you have to... if for some reason you think it’s necessary... okay. I understand. You got my go-ahead. But only then. Only then.”

What the hell was he talking about?

“I follow,” she said, as if she did.

He sighed. Then blurted: “I went out with Astrid, end of junior year, and over the summer. Maybe you remember.”

“I think so.” Keeping track of Astrid’s romantic activities was tough at the time, let alone reconstructing them ten years later.

He swigged Coors Light. “Well, I, uh... it got serious.”

“All right.”

His eyes swung to hers. “I mean... real serious.”

“Okay.”

He looked away again. “Luckily I’d been saving up. I worked summers at a gas station. I wanted a car. I had a car, an old one, my dad bought me, but... I wanted something really cool. I mean, I was kind of riding high back then. Football team, basketball, too.”

She was starting to understand, or anyway she thought she might. “Go on.”

Another swig. “So, uh... hell. Damnit. This is harder than I thought. And I thought it was going to be hard!”

“You got Astrid pregnant.”

He looked right at her. His mouth dropped like a trapdoor. “How... how did you know?”

“You two were real serious. Luckily you had money saved up. You gave her money to take care of it.”

He gazed at her, astonished. “That’s right. Are you psychic?”

She almost said, I’m a detective, but instead said, “No. It just makes sense.”

“And do you know what it means?” He didn’t wait for her to answer that, though she could have. “I paid for an abortion. I took a child’s life! A child of mine!”

“Let’s not go there,” she said. “Let’s go to the real problem.”

He said nothing.

She said it for him: “Jessy. She doesn’t know, does she?”

He shook his head. “No.” He kept shaking it for a while. His eyes were downcast. When they came up, and swung to her, they were haunted. Not red from crying. Not tearing up. Haunted.

“Senior year I started dating Jessy,” he said quietly. “We’d known each other for a long time. Since youth group at Saint Mary’s. We were friends who got to be more than friends, but it was based on that. Knowing each other forever, I mean.”

“You got married right out of high school.”

He nodded. “Jessy was pregnant. I think you knew that. I think everybody knew that. But there was no question that I wouldn’t marry her. I loved her then and I love her now. We have wonderful kids. I put my family first. Don’t I?”

She knew two things about Josh: he put his business first; and he was apparently a fertile sucker.

But she said, “Of course you do.”

“Even now,” he said, “it would break her heart to know what I did. That I paid for Astrid’s abortion.”

If her right hand wasn’t below the table near her Glock, she’d have patted his hand. “Jessy would stand by you. You must know that, Josh. Anyway, it was a long time ago. She’d forgive you.”

He was shaking his head again. “She is such a devout Catholic. I was always more just a half-ass of a one. She would say she forgives me. But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t leave me. Because she can’t. God wouldn’t let her.”

Now he was tearing up.

Krista said, “I won’t pretend to tell you I know exactly how she would react. I know her, she’s my best friend, but I don’t know her like you do. But I think she’d be an adult about it. And I promise you, Josh... this won’t come out unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Krista. Bless you.”

At least he didn’t add, “My child.”

“You okay, Josh?”

“There’s, uh...”

“Yes?”

“There’s more.”

What was this, an infomercial?

His shame gave way to embarrassment again. “We told you we were visiting Jessy’s sister and her husband. And we were.”

“Okay.”

“What we, uh, didn’t tell you... and should have, because you wouldn’t have to look very hard to find out... is Jessy’s sister and her husband have a time-share in Florida. And that’s where we were. With them. Not at the Timber Lake cabin, like I made it sound.”