They were sitting in the carport, one smoking and the other chewing gum, when I got home from school Friday, so I didn’t see them until I came around the side of the house. A regular policeman with his hat tucked under his arm and a man in desert fatigues with an armband that said M.P. I nearly fell into a faint.
“Darla Sugrue?” the regular policeman asked. He was an extra-tall man with long, skinny arms poking out of his short-sleeved uniform shirt. His name badge said Watkins.
“No,” I said, my voice wobbling a little at the edges, “Lynn Sugrue.”
“Good,” the M.P. said, a dapper little guy with a buzz cut and bright green eyes. He had a Yankee accent, like something out of a movie, and popped the gum he chewed on. He smiled in a lopsided way I didn’t much care for. “Just the one we’re looking for. Why don’t we go in the house?”
I about shit myself.
“No, sir, my mother don’t allow it. Not unless she’s here.”
“Not even for policemen like us?” the M.P. asked, his smile wilting.
“Not for no one, sir. She don’t allow it.”
“I see,” the regular policeman said, running a hand through his wavy black hair. “Well, then.” He put out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe and put it in the big green trashcan by the utility room. “This’ll do fine right here, I guess. You know a fellow by the name of Logan Loy? A young guy? A soldier?”
“I met him once. He gave me a ride.”
“Where’d you meet him, miss?” the M.P. asked. The front pocket of his shirt was embroidered with the name Tills.
“Down at the BP station on Broad.” I sat on the low brick wall at the edge of the carport and put my book bag on my lap.
“You often get in the car with strange men, miss?” the M.P. said, his voice becoming sharp.
Officer Watkins shot him a look.
“No, sir,” I said.
“Where exactly did the two of you go?” the M.P. asked.
“To Cobbtown and back. We stopped out there and got a Coke. Mr. Jenkins from the hardware store saw us. Ask him.”
“Oh, we talked to Mr. Jenkins.” M.P. Tills smirked at me.
Officer Watkins watched the M.P. in a careful way, as though he might do something sudden and alarming. I liked Officer Watkins’s sideburns and the way he turned his hat in circles with his hands. If I wasn’t mistaken, he’d let my mom off with a warning once when she rolled through a stop sign. I wondered why he’d called me by my mom’s name.
The M.P. waited for me to respond to this, and when I didn’t, he said, “That’s it? To Cobbtown and back and then he let you out of his car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You fool around with him?”
“Sir?”
“Kissing, petting—”
“Hey, hey,” Officer Watkins said, holding out his hand, “come on now.”
“No, sir,” I said, with as much disdain as I could muster under those very stressful circumstances.
“You see him again?” The M.P. frowned at me, hard.
I shook my head.
“Jesus,” the M.P. said, and snapped his gum. The crack echoed in the carport.
“What did you talk about, Lynn?” Officer Watkins said, his voice soft, almost a whisper.
“He told me he wanted to draw comic books. He told me about his car.”
“Jesus Christ,” the M.P. said.
“He tell you where he was headed?” Officer Watkins smiled.
“Back to Hunter,” I said. “He wanted my phone number, but I said I’d only take his.”
“You still have that number?” the M.P. asked quickly.
I shook my head. “I threw it out soon as he drove off. He was nice enough but too old. I only drove with him because he said he knew my cousin Bucky. Turned out he was fibbing about that, but it was kind of funny the way he did it. I didn’t mind.”
“So that’s it, huh? Cars, comics and Cobbtown,” the M.P. said, his voice turning mean. “I don’t believe a word you said, little girl.” He made the word girl sound like the most terrible insult ever.
I glared at the rude little man.
“How’d you like this? How’d you like to come down to the interrogation room at Hunter? If you feel like it, we could talk all night about cars, comics, and Cobbtown.” The M.P. took a couple steps toward me, but Officer Watkins stepped between us and put a hand on the M.P.’s chest. The M.P. shook it off and for a second I thought something might come of it. A spiteful look went across his face like the shadow of a passing bird.
“There ain’t no call for that,” Officer Watkins said.
“There ain’t no call for me to stand here and listen to this little bitch lie to me.” When he said “ain’t,” the M.P. tried to put on a Georgia accent, but it just sounded petty and foolish. “I’m going to take her with me.”
“No,” Officer Watkins said, “no you ain’t. And I won’t have you cussing out children neither.”
The two men squared off and looked at each other. The carport was quiet for a while. I shifted my book bag from one arm to the other. Finally, Officer Watkins took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. When he exhaled, the smoke seemed to fill the entire area.
“I know something isn’t right here,” the M.P. said. “I know it.”
“Well, maybe you should wait and speak with the girl’s mama.” He turned and looked at me. “She works over at the hospital, ain’t that right?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, pointing in the direction of the hospital, about a quarter mile from the house on a grassy hill. “She’ll be there till late.”
“This isn’t the last of it. If you know where Loy is, it’s in his best interest and yours for you to tell me. Harboring a criminal is a crime. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, “can I go? I’ve got a lot of homework for tomorrow.”
“Homework.” The M.P. made a sound of disgust. “I bet.”
“Come on, now. Let’s go. There ain’t no need to keep harassing the girl, sergeant.” Officer Watkins smiled at me and put on his hat. “Have a good afternoon, Lynn.” He turned and then stopped short and looked back over his shoulder. “But if you think of something that might be helpful, you see this soldier has gone missing and might even be in need of help, make sure and call down to the sheriff’s office, you hear?” He handed me his card.
“Yes, sir.”
Officer Watkins winked. It was a strange wink, as if he also knew something wasn’t right here. Only he went about figuring it out in a different way. Or maybe it was just a friendly wink.
“One last thing, Miss Sugrue,” the M.P. said without looking back, “somebody took a dump at the end of your driveway.”
“You just can’t quit, can you?” Officer Watkins said.
They crossed the backyard and walked through the stand of pines that separated our house from the large, grassy strip below the hospital parking lot. The police car was parked over by the entrance. I wondered if it’d been their plan all along to sneak up on me or if they just wanted to talk to my mom too. The muscles in my neck felt as though they’d been wound around a stick. God, I thought, that was close.