2 Sisters Detective Agency(31)

Chapter 38



Baby said nothing as I punched into the GPS the address for Stanford-West Academy, which I remembered from the out-of-place bumper sticker on Ashton Willisee’s Mercedes.

The huge wrought-iron front gates looked impressively secure as we drove up—but all it took was some vague mumbling about being a lawyer, here to see Ashton Willisee, before the bored guard rolled back the gates without question.

I drove through the immaculate campus grounds, past rolling sports fields, toward large cream buildings nestled among lush green trees. My lovingly restored 1972 Buick Skylark’s leopard-print paint job stood out among all the high-end automobiles parked in the lot next to the school’s administration building. I figured I’d have more trouble in the school office, but at the first mention of the word attorney, the receptionist simply pushed a button and asked someone on the other end of an intercom to track down Mr. Willisee. She let her eyes wander over me, but I couldn’t tell if she was appreciating my System of a Down T-shirt or giving me the Fat Person Look-Over. Baby tugged at the bottom of her impossibly small denim shorts as though she could somehow extend them down toward her knees.

“A lot of lawyers come through here?” I asked the receptionist.

“Sure do,” she said with a yawn. “About five a day. Lawsuits mostly. These kids are always suing someone, or someone is suing them.” As she turned back to her computer, I could see a game of solitaire reflected in her glasses. “School hours are the best time to meet with child clients. Can’t pay the maid to listen in here.”

Baby and I exchanged a look at the receptionist’s candor. Before long, Ashton came around the corner of a long hallway chewing his nails and watching the floor pass beneath his feet, his mind obviously elsewhere. Being called into the school office was obviously not a novel experience for him. But he stopped short at the sight of Baby and me.

“Oh, no.” He shook his head. “Nope. No. We’re not doing this.”

“Five minutes.” I held up my hand. “We’re here to help you.”

Ashton didn’t even look at the receptionist as he gave the command, “Call security.”

“You can give them five minutes,” the receptionist shot back. “System of a Down fans are good people.”

“Rock on.” I flipped her the sign of the horns.

Ashton didn’t put up much of a fight. He walked quickly to a cafélike area off the administration building that was enclosed by walls of bright pink bougainvillea. Students were sitting clustered in groups, ignoring one another as they tapped on phones or laptops, little white earbuds plugging their ears. The space was eerily quiet.

“I remember when a bunch of kids being together meant noise,” I said, trying to lighten Ashton’s mood. “All I hear now are computer keys.”

“So you’re old,” the boy said, sliding onto a chair across from us. “Get over it.”

“What happened to Derek Benstein?” I asked.

“Who?” Ashton folded his arms.

“Don’t try to bullshit us.” Baby rolled her eyes and huffed, teen code for the lameness of the situation. “The two of you are all over social media together. You guys posted about eating at Soho House, like, yesterday.” Baby waved her phone.

I was silently thankful and awed at young people’s propensity to let the internet know exactly what they were doing at all times.

“Okay, so?” Ashton snapped. “My friend was murdered. I don’t know anything about it. I wasn’t with him at the time, and I don’t know who did it. What do you want from me?”

“Is that what you’ll be telling the police when they eventually get around to you?” I asked.

“Sure is.”

“So you’re going to claim it had absolutely nothing to do with your abduction two nights ago?” I asked.

“I wasn’t abducted!” Ashton gave an angry laugh. He took out his phone and fired off a text so fast I barely saw the movement. “God, you’re, like, obsessed with me, lady. Don’t you have anything better to do than try to get all up in my life?”

“Not right now,” I admitted.

“Well, that sucks for you,” he said.

“I don’t think so. This is what I do.” I could feel Baby’s eyes on me. “Everything about you is screaming I need help, and it has been since the moment I laid eyes on you.”

Both Ashton and Baby fell into stillness, silence. Ashton broke himself out of it by glancing at his Rolex.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said. “Look, Benzo was a friend of mine, and what happened to him is, like, really fucked up, but he was into a bunch of bad stuff, okay? He was using really rare black-market steroids and stuff to get big. The kind of stuff you can only get from criminals. He probably tried to rip off his dealer and got shot.”

My phone rang. I glanced at it, planning to ignore it, but the call was coming from my legal office back in Colorado. I excused myself and walked a few feet away to take the call, knowing I had cases that needed reassigning. Baby and Ashton sat sullenly slumped in their chairs. When the call ended, I pretended to type out an email, my ears pricked for their conversation. I knew it was helpful to allow myself to be seen as the bad cop at times, to let them align with each other against me. I hoped they would get real with each other the way teenagers sometimes can without the presence of adults. I found myself smiling as Baby attempted to do just that.