“I don’t know,” Gregor said.
Howard watched him get out of the car and then got out himself. He didn’t have an umbrella with him and the rain poured down over his head like a shower that had been turned on too high. Gregor was getting wet, too, but he didn’t seem to mind it. He went to his own car and tapped on the driver’s window to get his attention.
“Well?” Howard said.
“I want to go back to the hotel and work on a couple of things,” Gregor said. “It’s getting late anyway. I’ll talk to the state police and set up a time and place so that we can get that body properly examined. Are you going to be on your cell phone all evening?”
“I always keep the cell phone on,” Howard said.
“Good. I’m going to get out of this rain. I’ll talk to you later.”
Howard thought he ought to get out of this rain, too, but he stood for a while watching Gregor Demarkian get into his car. When the car started up and began to ease out of its parking place, Howard turned toward the back door of central station and started walking across the lot. He did not feel very well at the moment. He wasn’t really sure why. Maybe it was just that he was tense.
He got to the back door of the station and slipped into the back hall there, past the rain.
When he had first talked to Marianne Glew about calling in Gregor Demarkian, she had warned him that he was going to cause more trouble than he would fix. He thought now that this was probably true.
3
It was raining when Haydee Michaelman left the trailer that evening, raining in that way where water pours out of the sky in sheets. She was running late and it was going to take even longer to get to school than usual. She wouldn’t be able to use the shortcuts now, both because of the wet—the ground out there got muddy as hell—and because of the dark. It was enough to make her want to scream. She wanted to scream all the louder because her wasted time had been so thoroughly wasted. It had been forty-five straight minutes of Mike whining about what she owed him and how he was going to get it.
“You’re not so big I can’t take my belt to you,” he’d said.
Haydee hardly believed she’d heard it. It was like something out of a Lifetime movie.
“I might not be too big, but you’re too drunk,” she’d said. “And I know how to dial nine-one-one and I’ve got nothing against filing charges when the police get here. If you want money, go get a job and make some for yourself.”
“I can’t get a job, you fucking cunt,” Mike had said, except he wasn’t “saying” things by then. He was more like spitting them. “I’m disabled. I’m sick. You know I’m sick.”
“You drink too much beer, that’s all that’s sick about you. You’ve got a doctor that’s willing to write you notes to the state. God, the two of you are a pair, you really are. Get off your butts and do something for once.”
“You owe me,” Mike had said. “You owe me. And if you don’t fork over that cash, I’m going to throw you out of here right on your ass, and see how you like it. Fucking cunt.”
Haydee picked her way down the rutted mud flat that served as a “road” inside the trailer park. She wasn’t going to hand over her money to Mike Katowski, or to her mother, and she didn’t think either one of them would ever throw her out. She was the only one who was working. She was the only one who was ever working. They were too sure they could get some money off her sometime to want her to leave.
On the other hand, leaving would be a good idea. Someday Mike was going to actually come at her, and she was actually going to have to call 911. That would be all right as far as it went. She was more than happy to see Mike’s ass in jail. The problem was that if he put her in the hospital, she could miss school and work for days.
Haydee got out to Watertown Avenue and started to cross it, when a car park on the shoulder honked at her. She ignored it. Cars honked at women on Watertown Avenue, especially women coming out of the trailer park. They all figured that if women were coming out of the trailer park, they had to be willing to … well.
The car honked again. Haydee ignored it again. There was a lot of traffic and she was stuck having to wait. Then a voice she recognized said, “Haydee? Haydee, it’s me. I thought you might need a ride.”
It took a few seconds for her mind to adjust, but she really did recognize the voice. It was Kenny Morton from English class. She wondered for a second if he’d come out here to pick up hookers, but she didn’t think so. She’d have seen him here before if he was in the habit of doing that.