Waking the Witch
Page 17

And yet ... Maybe I was a little more anxious about my first case than I was admitting. Maybe I couldn’t help thinking, What if this is the guy with information that’ll solve the case, and I blew him off? Or maybe it was just those damned voices in my head, Paige and Lucas telling me never to ignore a potential source. I called back and asked if I could stop by in the next hour.
 
NEXT, I HAD files to fax to Jesse. Easier said than done. While I didn’t expect a small-town motel to have a business center, I thought they’d at least have a fax machine in the office. They didn’t. Nor did the town have a copy center.
I remembered the library and arrived there to find it had closed at four and wouldn’t reopen for two days. Someone was kind enough to suggest the real estate office—apparently they ran an unofficial copy shop on the side. But it had closed at four, too. In fact, except for the diner, the whole town seemed to have shut down.
When I called Jesse, he said that was fine—he’d pop by tomorrow on his way home from Portland. Next stop, Mr. Mulligan, retired teacher.
 
THE ADDRESS MR. Mulligan gave led to a place outside town. The sign on the mailbox read J&C Hogs. I checked the address, but it seemed right, so I started up the lane to a sprawling ranch with a massive detached garage. The garage door was open. Through it I could see three gleaming black motorcycles. Harley-Davidsons. Hogs.
I swung off my bike as a man walked out. His grease-stained shortsleeved shirt showed off an impressive set of muscles for a guy who had to be in his midsixties.
“Ms. Levine,” he said, wiping a hand before extending it. “Chuck Mulligan.”
I shook his hand. His gaze had already slid over to my bike, and our fingers hadn’t fully disconnected before he was walking toward it.
“You didn’t really call me out here to wax nostalgic on past students, did you,” I said. “You heard what I was riding.”
He smiled, face creasing. “Guilty.”
“Only you realize I can’t stay and chat,” I said. “Not with a Harley man.”
“Those are clients’ bikes. Mine’s a BMW.”
“Even worse.”
He laughed and crouched beside my bike, checking it out.
“So you must be the C in J&C Hogs. Who’s the J?”
“Janice. My wife. She just put me on the sign so I’d feel special. It’s her business.” He paused. “Was her business, I should say. Still not used to that. She passed away last year. I took over after I retired.”
He pushed to his feet. “Let’s get inside. I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable there.”
“Actually, I’d be more comfortable there.” I pointed to the garage. “If that’s okay.”
“Certainly.”
We spent the next half-hour looking at bikes and talking about them. His wife’s business had been customizing Harleys—making them faster and fancier.
I’d have been tempted to move on to business a lot faster if I didn’t see how much he was enjoying the opportunity to talk about his wife and her work. I understood that, so I let it keep going until he steered things on track by saying, “Have you met Paula Thompson yet?”
“No, just Kayla. Cool kid.”
His gray eyes sparkled. “Cool. Yes, that’s a good word to describe Kayla. One of those little characters who don’t quite fit in, but you know, when they grow up, they’ll do better in life than all the popular kids. Paula brings her up once a week to go over her lessons, make sure she’s on track. I offer to help more, but Paula won’t even take the supervision work for nothing—insists on cleaning my house while I’m working with Kayla.”
“You taught her, too, didn’t you? Paula Thompson?”
He nodded and led me to a couple of chairs in a makeshift office space. “She started high school the same year I started teaching. I taught her, then Genevieve, and now Kayla. Three generations of Thompson girls. And three more different girls you couldn’t hope to find.”
“Tell me about Ginny and Brandi.”
He settled in his chair and took a moment, as if trying to decide how to start. “When I first started teaching, I was convinced every student could be helped. It’s a spark of idealism that fades fast. Some can, and you learn to concentrate on them. The others ... The others you can’t help because they just aren’t interested.”
Sounded familiar. I’d never had much use for school myself.
“I had Ginny and Brandi in my class,” he said, “when they came to class, which wasn’t often. They spent most of the day in the woods behind the school, smoking with their boyfriends. Then Ginny got pregnant with Kayla.”
“Did that help?”
He rubbed his chin and I could tell he wanted to say yes, but after a moment, gave a slow shake of his head. “Ginny was thrilled about Kayla, but only because it meant she could quit school. Otherwise, she was perfectly happy to dump the baby on Paula and go off getting drunk and high with Brandi.”
“No father in the picture I take it?”
“Daddy was some loser Ginny hooked up with on a weekend in Portland. I’d be surprised if she even got a name. Paula has Kayla now, thank God. Should have had her from the start but ...” He shrugged. “Paula had Ginny when she was a kid herself and it turned her life around, so she kept hoping having Kayla would do the same for Ginny. Paula would baby-sit Kayla, make sure she was fed, had clothing, play dates, all that, but she insisted Ginny step up and be a mother, get a job, get an apartment ...”
“Did she?”
“The job? On and off, mostly off. She had a place, though, over one of the shops on Main Street. Kayla wasn’t neglected—Paula made sure of that. But like I said, those Thompson girls were very different. Having Ginny might have been a life-changing experience for Paula, but her life didn’t need as much changing as Ginny’s. Even if Paula wasn’t much of a student, she still showed up in class and did the work. Hung out with a rough crowd, but she was the best of the bunch. Polite and respectful even when she came to class stoned.”
“And Ginny’s dad? Was he part of that rough crowd?”
“I don’t think so. Paula had a string of boyfriends in ninth and tenth grade. Then she seemed to stop dating. Next thing you know, she’s pregnant.”