Thick as Thieves(51)

By contrast, Crystal was a nonentity. She wasn’t a member of any school group, never attended a ball game, dance, or private party. Ledge never had understood why. Until the day he’d found out why. And on that day, he’d almost killed her stepbrother.

She always had possessed an uncanny ability to read him, and as she scrutinized him now, she said, “You’re strolling down memory lane, aren’t you?”

“How can you tell?”

“Because you’re wearing the same ferocious scowl that you were when you caught me hiding in the culvert.”

By then, they’d been sophomores in high school. During the intervening years, Crystal had turned into a beauty. She had a Native American gene somewhere in her ancestry that was manifested in her slanted hazel eyes and high cheekbones. Her breasts had filled out to a solid C. Her legs were no longer skinny, and she was no longer ignored. She had the attention of the male student population.

Ledge had overheard Rusty Dyle telling his cronies that he’d like to get his hands on the Ivers chick’s ass, which was the best one in school, bar none.

Ledge had wanted to clock him, but instead he had pretended not to have heard the remark. Any reaction from him would have been noticed and acted upon by Rusty, more than likely to Crystal’s detriment.

She had developed a reputation for being a go-to girl if you were looking to get laid or blown, but Ledge attributed the rumors to jealousy from the girls who started them, and to the wishful thinking of boys who fueled the rumor mill. How could she be giving away easy sex when she was never in the company of peers?

One day he’d seen Crystal rushing out of the cafeteria during lunch period, obviously upset. On impulse, he’d left his unfinished lunch and went after her, following her out of the building and off campus.

He’d stayed at a distance behind her, until he saw her leave the sidewalk and slip-slide down a steep ravine. He’d run to catch up and discovered her sitting in a concrete culvert, her back to the damp, curved wall, head bent over her raised knees, crying so hard her body shook.

When he spoke her name, she’d jumped and was about to scramble to her feet. He’d put out his hand in a steadying gesture. “Go ahead and cry if you need to. I’ll just sit here with you. Okay?”

Slowly, he lowered himself into a crouch in front of her. She watched him with wariness, but when he didn’t make a move to touch her, she’d replaced her head on her knees and cried herself out.

When she finally had run dry, she raised her head and wiped tears off her bloated, splotchy face. “Go away. You’ll only make it worse by being here.”

“Make what worse?”

“The things they say about me.”

“Who says?”

“Everybody.”

“Screw them.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “They say I do.” Settling her forehead on her knees again, she’d spoken softly, but stressfully. “I don’t do those things they say. Why would I want to? I hate it. It’s awful. It hurts.”

The words seeped into Ledge like a vile and oily venom. He thought about her strict isolation, and the maroon pickup truck that transported her to and from school, remembered clearly her saying with a tremor in her child’s voice, I’m not supposed to talk to boys.

“What hurts, Crystal?”

Though her head still rested on her knees, she gave a negative shake. “I can’t tell.”

“You can tell me.”

“So you can blab it to everybody else.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

She raised her head and looked at him skeptically.

He said, “I swear I’ll never tell anything you ask me not to. Who hurts you?”

Her eyes filled to overflowing with fresh tears, and, in a raw voice, she whispered, “My stepbrother.”

A surge of red-hot rage consumed him. “He abuses you? Like, touches you?”

“It started out that way. Now…” She couldn’t go on, but her expression had spoken volumes.

Ledge settled back on his rump and didn’t take his eyes off her face as she’d told him the whole sordid story.

It had started when her stepfather died. His son continued to live with Crystal and her mother. Her mother was aware of his molestation, but she was too afraid of him to do anything about it. They lived in terror of him. His name was Morg Young.

Morg Young was a regular at the bar, one who Henry and Don had just as soon do his carousing someplace else. He picked fights, was generally disorderly, and, once, Henry had tossed him out for harassing a woman who had neither invited nor welcomed his attention. Ledge would never have connected that redneck lowlife to Crystal, who had a different last name.

Now, Ledge reached across to the corner of the sofa and covered her knee with his hand. “To this day, I wish I had killed him.”

“You very nearly did.”

He had been too young to serve liquor, but often, after he had finished his dinner and homework, he’d helped out in the bar by sweeping, washing glasses, unloading cases of product, anything that needed doing.

That night around ten o’clock, Morg Young had come in alone and, after getting a beer from Don, had sauntered over to the billiards area and asked those standing around the tables which one of them was ready to lose some money. He’d played several games and stayed until closing. He had been one of the last customers to leave.