The Quarry Girls(43)

“I didn’t know that,” I said, then wished I’d bitten my tongue, the way she looked at me. Like I’d caught her out in a lie.

But that expression quickly dropped off her face. She seemed to be struggling to hang on to anything. I was grateful she’d let me in, despite the fact that the only place left for us to stand was at the bottom of the stairs. Even the artery leading to the television space was closed off, stuffed with white bags buzzing with fruit flies.

“They don’t seem to care,” she said, shaking her head. “The police. This whole damn neighborhood . . . no one here cares about the girls, not the ones who speak out. I bet Beth McCain was another one they couldn’t keep quiet, like Maureen. Strong girls, both of them. I hear the whispers. Can you believe people are saying she ran away from me?”

I brought the water to my mouth and pretended to drink. I needed to access Maureen’s room. If Mrs. Hansen got spooked, I’d lose my chance. She wasn’t making any sense bringing Beth McCain into this, but fortunately, I had a lot of practice dealing with what Dad called “excitable women.” It was all about steady movements and not arguing no matter what they said.

“I heard Sheriff Nillson say that about Maureen,” I agreed.

“The day he stopped by?” Mrs. Hansen rubbed her upper arms. “That’s right, you and Brenda were here.”

We were, in fact, the people who’d told her Maureen was missing, who’d insisted she call the cops. “Yep,” I said.

“He was wrong that day,” she said. “I didn’t tell him that. You don’t tell Jerome Nillson anything. But I knew when he said it that Maureen hadn’t run away. Now that she’s been missing three days, he should see that, too. But do you think he does? No.”

I tried to recall the conversation that day. Mrs. Hansen hadn’t initially seemed worried about Maureen’s absence, but her demeanor had changed when Nillson showed up. “Has he been back since?”

She sighed. “He came over last night. I made the mistake of telling him some of my pills disappeared the same time as Maureen. My heart medicine. Now he’s certain she took some to sell, or to get high, and won’t come home until she’s good and ready.”

“Get high off heart medicine?”

Mrs. Hansen pursed her lips. “The tablets look like the good stuff. Maureen probably got them confused.”

Mrs. Hansen’s medicine cabinet was quite a thing to see. Maureen said her mom took a little bit of everything but was suffering from a lot of nothing except loneliness. I knew Maureen had lifted some of the “good stuff” before because she’d shown it to me. Looked just like an aspirin unless you squinted close at the numbers carved across it. It was possible Maureen could have confused those pills with the heart medicine if they were both white and side by side in her hand, but she’d have read the bottle’s label before she ever got that far. In any case, stealing pills didn’t mean she’d run away.

“You think she took them?” I asked.

That sigh again. “Maybe. Jerome can be very persuasive. He almost talked me into believing that phone call wasn’t important.”

My eyes flew to hers. “Which phone call?”

“The night Maureen disappeared, the phone rang around midnight. Our ring, I’m sure of it, but it stopped almost immediately. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Fell right back to sleep. It wasn’t one of you kids, was it?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. Claude or Brenda wouldn’t have called that late, and I sure didn’t.”

Her face drooped. “Jerome said I must have imagined the phone call. Damn him.”

I thought about all the reasons the sheriff would want to dismiss the possibility of a phone call. “Do you know Sheriff Nillson very well?”

Her eyes came at me like hawks. “Not as well as your father does.”

I rocked back on my heels. “They work together.”

She shook her head. “Before that. All you kids think your parents didn’t exist until you were born, but Jerome, your mom and dad, me, we all went to high school together.” Her expression grew distant. “I knew Jerome was going to be a police officer or a principal one day. Even back then, he got off on telling people what to do.”

She moved her body like she was coughing, but she didn’t make any noise. “Jerome and Gary didn’t get along much in high school. Your dad was a snob, I hate to say it.” The way she looked at me, her mouth tight, I could tell she didn’t mind saying it at all. “And Jerome was as working class as they come. But your dad came around to Jerome’s way of seeing the world, didn’t he? Nice and close to the ground, where the snakes are.” Her jaw worked, but no words came out for a few beats.

“Of course, you could say the same thing about most everyone in Pantown.” She laughed, a hollow sound, a winter wind through clawed branches. “That’s how I know someone out there knows what happened to Maureen. Nothing happens in Pantown that someone doesn’t know about. Tongues wagged when my husband left me, you better damn well believe it, but I suppose I deserved that. Maureen certainly never forgave me.”

I frowned. Maureen never talked about why her dad had left.

Mrs. Hansen slumped, like the air had suddenly gone out of her. She pointed in the direction of the stairs. “You said you were here to get your shirt from Maureen’s room. You might as well go on up.”