Twenty-four

Lola dawdled outside the hockey rink and hit Tynslee’s phone number one more time. No sign of the girl, and she wasn’t answering her phone.

People pushed past her into the rink. Lola searched their faces, sniffed the air. No one she knew. And not a whiff of bay rum. For years, the rare occasions she’d smelled the classic aftershave had brought a wistful smile, along with memories of her father. She wondered if she’d ever have that same warm association again. After Charlie’s death, she’d switched from Ivory soap to whatever brand was on sale in Magpie’s small supermarket, or at Teeple’s on the reservation—anything that didn’t smell like Charlie, scent too powerful a trigger.

But nothing could erase the aroma of sage on the morning breeze, the whiff of vanilla from the trunks of the Ponderosa pines, the wetted dust in the rare rainstorm—all things that Charlie had loved and often remarked upon.

Maybe she and Margaret should move to some anonymous locale, a place like Salt Lake, where the very air was scrubbed free of painful association, smelling only of exhaust and concrete and plastic, the sorts of things nobody would fall in love with. Lola tamped the thought down as soon as it arose. The aunties, simultaneously so stern and affectionate, would turn murderous if she tried to move Margaret away. And Jan—she’d lead the charge.

Another group of people shouldered past. Every time the doors opened, sound and icy air assaulted her. She’d already switched to a parka in Montana, but had switched back to a light jacket for the Utah trip after checking the forecast and finding considerably warmer predictions for Salt Lake. The parka and its puffy warmth were back in Magpie. Lola shoved her hands into her pockets and followed the crowd inside.

This time, with Donovan Munro’s taunts about research and her lack thereof echoing in her head, she’d gone online to check out the team before heading to the game. The Wolverines were the ones in black, their namesake mascot snarling from a white circle in the center of their jerseys. Lola was glad she’d memorized Malachi’s number—82—because towering atop their skates, their gangly bodies bulked up by layers of protective padding, helmets hiding their faces, the boys all looked alike.

The Wolverines were up against a crosstown rival, the Polar Bears, whose white jerseys made them blend in with the sheet of blinding alabaster ice. The two teams were fighting for the lead spot in the league, and Lola had a hard time finding a place to sit among the press of parents cheering on their children. She spotted Munro a few rows away and cursed herself for her own idiocy. His son was playing. Of course he’d be there. She skulked to a different section of the bleachers, her caution unnecessary given the noise level at the rink, grateful when she spotted an unlikely opening in one of the front rows near the Wolverines’ box. Too late, she realized why no one wanted to sit near the youth who occupied the middle of the space.

It was Kwesi, so beset by mourning that no one could possibly know what to say to him, especially in the light-hearted environs of a game, and so they avoided him, sliding away on the bleachers, contenting themselves with casting sidelong glances his way. Only a soccer ball sat beside him.

Lola took a seat beside him and angled herself away, bending her head over her phone as she searched for any updates on the condition of the cop. Nothing new. She told herself that was good, even though she knew that every day he lingered in critical condition was a day weaker, the same machines that kept him alive also a constant stress on his struggling body.

She sneaked a glance at Kwesi. Much as she wanted to talk with him, this wasn’t the way she’d have chosen. Too soon, too public. She would wait until after the game, then corner him in some out-of-the-way place.

Her jacket had a hood. She pulled it tight around her head, as much for warmth as disguise, and blew on her fingers. The air in the rink hovered just above freezing. It had a sharp, clean tang. Ice crystals sequined the air as the players cut and swerved across the rink, skates hissing as they carved arabesques into its surface. It looked tense and thrilling and impossible to follow, at least for Lola. Around her, people pounded mittened hands together and yelled whenever Something Important happened. The scoreboard stood 0-0.

Lola looked for 82. He glided ahead of the others, moving the puck up the rink with short, protective strokes. Someone caught up with him and slammed him into the boards just below where Lola sat. The bleachers shook. “They got that little fairy good,” said someone near her.

Fairy? Lola hadn’t heard that term since high school. Was it still an epithet? Maybe, especially given the controversy over the church’s stance on gay teens, it had regained currency, questioning a boy’s sexuality being the surest path to insult just as “slut” had never lost its currency when applied to girls.

Malachi hopped to his feet and looked into the stands, raising his fist in a defiant “I’m okay” sign. A few desultory claps sounded. Lola sensed movement beside her and saw Kwesi raising his own fist in a return salute.

She tried not to stare. Kwesi and Frank had been best friends. And Malachi hated Frank—at least, that’s what Munro had hinted. But Kwesi and Malachi appeared to be on good terms, an impression strengthened when Malachi was sent to the penalty box for some incomprehensible infraction. Kwesi scooted down to the boards. Malachi leaned around the edge of the penalty box. The two spoke for a few moments. Among the spectators, heads craned, everyone else almost as curious as Lola. Kwesi turned away from the box and climbed back to his seat. People suddenly became fixated on the game.

What the hell. “Hey,” said Lola.

Kwesi turned, and she saw herself as he probably saw her, a middle-age woman, a stranger, not part of the hockey crowd given her inadequate clothing.

Wariness shaded his eyes. “Do I know you?”

Fortunately, for all his years in his adopted country, Kwesi had yet to acquire a loud American voice.

“I know Tynslee,” Lola said, beneath cheers for yet another inexplicable advantage, albeit short of a goal, gained by the Wolverines. She jerked her head at the exit. “Talk?” she mouthed.

She didn’t wait for an answer but excuse-me’d her way down the row, sure that her ploy would fail, that she’d wait outside for a boy who’d never show. A welcome warmth hit her as she slipped through the door. She shook her head free of the hood and opened her jacket. Other than a solitary smoker in the shadows, his back to her, the area around the door was deserted. She edged away from the smoker and resolutely ignored the door when she heard it open. It won’t be him, she told herself.

It was.

Kwesi stood a few feet from her, not looking at her, the soccer ball tucked under one arm. For all anyone who might be watching could tell, they were two strangers thawing out before heading back into the rink.

“Lola Wicks,” she introduced herself. “I’m a reporter.”

The ball thudded to the ground.

“But I’m not writing a story right now,” she hurried to add. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here.”

“That makes two of us.” The words floated toward her, weightless as an exhalation.

Good. Now all she had to do was keep him talking.

“I have to say, I was a little surprised to see you here, so soon after your mother’s funeral.”

“My dad thought it would be good for me to get out, spend some time with my friends.” Kwesi rolled the ball off one ankle, spinning it upward, catching it in his hand.

Lola hoped Galon Ballard would never find out that Kwesi’s friends had been too uncomfortable to sit with him at the game. “What about your sister? Doesn’t she need time with friends, too?”

He dropped the ball again and began dribbling, jogging in circles around her. Lola forced herself to stand still.

“She told me about you,” he called from somewhere behind her. “She’s not coming.”

She did? Lola wondered exactly what Tynslee had said. “Why not?”

He circled back to stand in front of her, the ball once again in his hands, jiggling it with a boy’s energy but looking at her with the eyes of someone who’d been forced to assume a man’s burdens in the past few days. “Because we told her not to.”

“We?”

“Me and Malachi.”

So that exchange in the stands had been just what it looked like. They were friends. Or maybe something more sinister. Maybe Kwesi was in on Malachi’s pill business. Possibilities caromed off the walls of Lola’s skull, thoughts coming so hard and fast her head ached. What about Frank? Was he part of it? If it even existed, she reminded herself. But if it did … maybe Sariah had somehow found out the boys were dealing. Threatened to ground them, tell all their parents, even go to the cops. Would they have felt she had to be stopped? By, as the saying went, any means necessary?

Kwesi stood before her, eyes hooded, face a mask. Unmoving. Waiting.

“Tynslee said you might know something that could help me. Do you know what she was talking about?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“That you should get out of here.”

Lola almost laughed. “That’s not going to happen. Just talk with me. I won’t write anything without your permission.” Generally, she never offered such assurances. But they were still kids, even if she was beginning to suspect that, as with most teens, these were hardly the innocents their parents prayed they were.

Kwesi’s prolonged sigh implied infinite patience, a brick wall to Lola’s urgent, probing curiosity. “You’ve been to Afghanistan.”

“How did you know?”

He didn’t bother to answer. Five minutes—more like thirty seconds—on Google. Not only had he learned about her from Tynslee, he’d done some homework on his own, more effort than Lola would have expected from someone his age, especially someone caught up in the firestorm of grief and anger following the murder of his mother.

“You know what those places are like,” he said. “I was only five when I was adopted. Way younger than Frank was. I’d been with my parents for five years before the Shumways brought him home. I’ve forgotten a lot what it was like at home. Not everything, though. So when I say you should get out of here, you should listen to me. I come from a place where people end up dead if they don’t get out in time. Same as Afghanistan. So go away. For your own sake, go away.”

He turned away. The door slammed.

Lola glared at it. “Not a chance.”

“Well, that’s encouraging.”

Lola whirled. Donovan Munro stood behind her, a lit cigarette dangling from his fingers.

Her heart gave a couple of deep bass beats. “You scared the crap out of me. When did you come out here? And what’s encouraging?”

He grinned. Another whack of that internal drum, with a long, trailing vibration. She reminded herself that she didn’t like smokers. Again, she flashed to Before Charlie, when a smile like that, one with a hint of challenge, would have moved her to acquisitive action. She made another gut check. No last bang on the drum. No heat. Maybe someday, her libido would flare back to life. But it wouldn’t be on Munro’s account.

“It’s encouraging that you appear to have no intention of backing off. You’ve been doing everything possible to weasel out of this story. I’d expected—how’d they phrase it?” He pulled a printout from his pocket and read aloud. “‘I pity anyone who tries to keep Lola Wicks from getting a story. She’ll roll right over him like a bulldozer.’ Bulldozer, hell. You’ve been more like—oh, I don’t know. A unicycle. Wobbling away from things as fast as you can go on one wheel.” He stuck the cigarette between his lips and grinned around it.

“Give me that.” Lola snatched at the paper in his hand. He’d found an old profile of her, written after she’d won an award for an investigation into a campaign finance scheme that had exposed a white gubernatorial candidate posing as an Indian.

“Gladly. I’d advise you to read it. Let me know if you recognize that woman. And don’t tell me. Show me.”

Lola crumpled the paper and tossed it away.

Munro picked it up. “We don’t litter here. Maybe you’ve noticed. Although noticing things doesn’t appear to be your strong suit. Maybe you should hold on to this. Remind yourself of who you are.”

Lola’s eyes flashed a shut up warning.

Munro apparently missed the message. “Anyhow, what’d the kid say to you?”

Kwesi’s over-the-top phrase came back to Lola: people end up dead. She shook her head. “Just some typical teenage drama.” She pointed to the cigarette. “What’s up with that? Pretty sure you’re not supposed to be doing that here. I’ve never seen as many No Smoking signs as I’ve seen in this city.”

He took an exaggerated drag and sent a slipstream of smoke her way. “Maybe I break the rules sometimes. Just like you—” He waved the crumpled printout at her. “Excuse me. Like you used to.”

Asshole. It arose unbidden. Only way to deal with someone who hit you was to hit back. “So what’s the deal with Malachi and Kwesi?” she asked. “Are they friends?”

Munro’s face tightened as he gave an unconvincing shrug. “Dunno. Malachi doesn’t have many friends. And the few he has, I can’t keep straight. Speaking of Malachi, I’d better get back in there.”

He left Lola standing with her mouth agape. “You shouldn’t smoke,” she called after him. Then muttered her way to her car. “Can’t keep them straight, my ass.” In the few days she’d been in Utah, Kwesi’s was the only black face she’d seen. Not something that anyone, especially Munro, with the heightened observation of a journalist, was likely to forget.

Such thoughts occupied her mind for a five full minutes, possibly the longest she’d yet gone before remembering again that Charlie was dead.