The Storm King(50)

He dropped off his books, accepted a manly half hug from Mr. Davidson, and slid through the school’s front entrance into the bright sunshine.

Summer was brief and erratic in this corner of the North Country, but today was a furnace, the humidity making the air thick enough to sip.

“I’m not built for this weather,” Nate said as he pulled off his T-shirt. The June sun on his skin made him feel immortal.

“It’s going to be a lot hotter in the city,” Johnny said. Nate knew Johnny didn’t like the idea of them going different places next year. But Johnny was tight with Owen, and Owen was going to a branch of UMass not far from Tufts. It’d take some getting used to, but they’d be okay.

“Can’t you keep your clothes on for five minutes?” Tom muttered.



“You know, we could still do another Thunder Run,” Johnny said. “Lucy wouldn’t have to know.”

Nate stopped dead in his tracks. He was in the most buoyant of moods, but he hated to repeat himself. “Was I not clear?” He turned the full glare of his blue gaze on Johnny.

Johnny looked away and somehow became even further slumped.

“You guys can still get Kritzler, though,” Nate said as they started walking again. He’d given Johnny the stick, and now it was time for the carrot. “You don’t need me.”

Johnny made a sound somewhere between a moan and a wheeze.

Nate hooked his arm around Johnny’s neck as they walked. The trees lining the street brimmed with blossoms. The aromas of flowers and mowed grass layered the clean mountain air. He was sorry his friend couldn’t share in the euphoria of the day. The future and all of its spoils lay spread before them.

“It won’t be the same.”

And Nate’s heart thrilled at the thought, because Johnny was right. After today, nothing would ever be the same again.





Ten

Her name was Maura Jeffers, and she was dead.

She’d been fifteen and a sophomore at the high school.

Jeffers was the last name of a thrift shop owner Nate and his friends had done a Thunder Run against in the old days. The man had gotten handsy with Lucy, so they’d painted the windows and walls of his shop with sugar water. In no time, the place had been infested with insects. In case people weren’t already suspicious of secondhand clothes, a front window clogged with carpenter ants gave them pause. The town along the shore was a small one, so odds were good that the groper and this girl were somehow related.

The chief handed Nate a flimsy cup filled with coffee.

“I assume you take it black,” the chief said.

He didn’t, but Nate smiled anyway. He even managed to conceal the fact that he was being scalded by the sleeveless cup.

The chief had made Nate give an official statement about his scuffle with the kids on Grams’s lawn. Nate had been honest, except for the preamble of standing sentinel over the house for hours in the rain. The story he offered stated that the vandals had woken him as they prepared their mischief and so he managed to stop them before they did any damage.



Chief Buck had significantly dialed down the heat of their interview. Whether this was because the man had softened or because he’d simply decided to change tack, Nate wasn’t sure. He intended to be cautious until he figured this out. The chief had moved their conversation from the interrogation room to the relative comfort of his personal office.

“Didn’t this place used to be bigger?” Nate asked.

“Added a closet during the remodel.” He pointed to a door on the side of room.

Nate sipped the coffee. A bouquet somewhere between pond water and petroleum.

“How is it? Probably not up to city standards.”

“It’s perfect. How did the Jeffers girl die?” Nate knew she’d been found along the shore, but that didn’t mean she’d drowned.

“Medical examiner hasn’t looked at the body yet.”

“You must have an idea.”

Chief Buck ran a finger around the rim of his coffee mug. The phone at the front desk trilled through the silence. Though it was early, the line had been ringing virtually nonstop. Medea had Greystone Lake’s finest stretched thin.

“She was strangled.”

Nate winced. The idea of strangulation bothered him nearly as much as the idea of drowning. “I guess I was hoping it could be explained away as an accident.”

“The ME will make the official call, but we’re treating it as homicide.”

“Strangulation’s an intimate way to kill someone,” Nate said. It was something he’d read, but it seemed true.

He imagined wrapping his hands around a slender young neck and tightening his grip until something essential snapped under the pressure. Crushing the trachea would feel like squeezing a stalk of celery to pulp. He’d have to be face-to-face with the girl, staring into her wide eyes as delicate capillaries exploded like fireworks under the strain. He’d have to be utterly unmoved by the desperation on her dying face. No, Nate thought.



I’d have to like it.

The chief raised his eyebrows.

“Maybe you should let me handle the profiling.” He picked Nate’s statement off his desk. “What about the boy she was with? You say you didn’t get a good look at him.”

“He was tall. Taller than me, but all arms and legs. At least it seemed that way. They were both wearing baggy raincoats.” In his official statement, Nate had downplayed the physical elements of his confrontation with the teens.