Promise Me

CHAPTER 47

Myron sped and made it to the hospital in ten minutes. Lance Banner was waiting for him. “Joan Rochester is still in surgery.” “What happened?”

“You want his story or hers?”

“Both.”

“Dominick Rochester said she fell down the stairs. They’ve been here before. She falls down the stairs a lot, if you get my drift.”

“I do. But you said there were his and her stories?”

“Right. She’s always backed up his before.”

“And this time?”

“She said he beat her up,” Banner said. “And that she wants to press charges.”

“That must have surprised him. How bad is it?”

“Pretty bad,” Banner said. “Several broken ribs. A broken arm. He must have pounded the hell out of her kidneys, because the doctor is speculating about removing one.”

“Jesus.”

“And, of course, not a mark on her face. The guy’s good.”

“Comes with practice,” Myron said. “Is he here?”

“The husband? Yeah. But we’ve got him in custody.”

“For how long?”

Lance Banner shrugged. “You know the answer to that.”

In short: not very.

“Why did you call me?” Myron asked.

“Joan Rochester was awake when she came in. She wanted to warn you. She said to be careful.”

“What else?”

“That was it. It’s a miracle she got that out.”

Rage and guilt consumed him in equal measure. Joan Rochester could handle her husband, Myron had thought. She lived with him. She made her choices. Gee, what would be his next justification for not helping her — she’d been asking for it?

“Do you want to tell me how you’re involved in the lives of the Rochesters?” Banner asked.

“Aimee Biel isn’t a runaway. She’s in trouble.”

He filled him in as quickly as possible. When he finished, Lance Banner said, “We’ll get an APB out on Drew Van Dyne.”

“What about Jake Wolf?”

“I’m not sure how he fits in.”

“Do you know his son?”

“You mean Randy?” Lance Banner shrugged a little too casually. “He’s the high school quarterback.”

“Has Randy ever gotten into any trouble?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because I heard his father bribed you guys to get him off a drug charge,” Myron said. “Care to comment?”

Banner’s eyes turned black. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Save the indignation, Lance. Two of your fellow finest braced me on Jake Wolf’s orders. They stopped me from talking to Randy. One punched me in the gut when I was cuffed.”

“That’s a load of crap.”

Myron just looked at him.

“Which officers?” Banner demanded. “I want names, dammit.”

“One was about my height, skinny. The other had a thick mustache and looked like John Oates from Hall and Oates.”

The shadow hit Lance’s face. He tried to cover it.

“You know who I’m talking about.”

Banner tried to hold it back. He spoke through gritted teeth. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“We don’t have the time. Just tell me what the deal with the Wolf kid is.”

“No one got bribed.”

Myron waited. A woman in a wheelchair headed toward them. Banner stepped aside and let her pass. He rubbed his face with his hand.

“Six months ago a teacher claimed that he caught Randy Wolf selling pot. He searched the kid and found two nickel bags on him. I mean, penny-ante stuff.”

“This teacher,” Myron said. “Who was he?”

“He asked us to keep his name out of it.”

“Was it Harry Davis?”

Lance Banner didn’t nod, but he might as well have.

“So what happened?”

“The teacher called us. I had two guys go in. Hildebrand and Peterson. They, uh, fit your description. Randy Wolf claimed that he was framed.”

Myron frowned. “And your guys bought that?”

“No. But the case was weak. The constitutionality of the search was questionable. The amounts were small. And Randy Wolf. He was a good kid. No past record or anything.”

“You didn’t want to get him in trouble,” Myron said.

“None of us did.”

“Tell me, Lance. If he’d been a black kid from Newark caught selling at Livingston High, would you have felt the same way?”

“Don’t start that hypothetical crap with me. We had a weak case to begin with and then, the next day, Harry Davis tells my officers he won’t testify. Just like that. He backs out. So now it’s over. My officers had no choice.”

“My, how convenient,” Myron said. “Tell me: Did the football team have a good season?”

“It was a nothing of a case. The kid had a bright future. He’s going to Dartmouth.”

“I keep hearing that,” Myron said. “But I’m beginning to wonder if it’ll happen.”

Then a voice shouted, “Bolitar!”

Myron turned. Dominick Rochester stood at the end of the corridor. His hands were cuffed. His face was red. Two officers were on either side of him. Myron started toward him. Lance Banner jogged behind, calling out a soft warning.

“Myron…?”

“I won’t do anything, Lance. I just want to talk to him.”

Myron stopped two feet in front of him. Dominick Rochester’s black eyes burned. “Where is my daughter?”

“Proud of yourself, Dominick?”

“You,” Rochester said. “You know something about Katie.”

“Did your wife tell you that?”

“No.” He grinned. It was one of the most frightening sights Myron had ever seen. “Just the opposite, in fact.”

“What are you talking about?”

Dominick leaned in closer and whispered. “No matter what I did to her, no matter how much she suffered, my dearest wife wouldn’t talk. See, that’s why I’m sure you know something. Not because she talked — but because no matter how much hell I put her through, she wouldn’t.”

Myron was back in his car when Erin Wilder called him.

“I know where Randy Wolf is.”

“Where?”

“There’s a senior party at Sam Harlow’s house.”

“They’re having a party? Aren’t any of Aimee’s friends concerned?”

“Everyone thinks she ran away,” Erin said. “Some of them saw her online tonight, so they’re even more sure.”

“Wait, if they’re at a party, how did they see her online?”

“They have BlackBerrys. They can IM from their phones.”

Technology, he thought. Keeping people together by allowing them to be apart. Erin gave him the address. Myron knew the area. He hung up and started on his way. The ride did not take long.

There were a bunch of cars parked out on the Harlows’ street. Someone had set up a big tent in the backyard. This was a real party, an invite party, as opposed to a few kids hanging out and sneaking beers. Myron threw the car into park and entered the yard.

There were parents here — chaperones, he guessed. That would make this more difficult. But he didn’t have time to worry about it. The police might be mobilizing, but they weren’t anxious to look at the big picture. Myron was getting it now. It was coming into focus. Randy Wolf, he knew, was one of the keys.

The festivities were nicely partitioned. The parents hung out in the house’s screened-in porch. Myron could see the adults in the dim light. They were laughing and had a keg. The men wore long shorts and loafers and smoked cigars. The women sported bright Lilly Pulitzer skirts and flip-flops.

The seniors gathered at the far end of the tent, as far away from adult supervision as possible. The dance floor was empty. The DJ played a song by the Killers, something about having a girlfriend who looked like a boyfriend that somebody had in February. Myron headed straight for Randy and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

Randy shrugged Myron’s hand away. “Get off me.”

“We need to talk.”

“My father said—”

“I know all about what your father said. We’re talking anyway.”

Randy Wolf was surrounded by about six guys. Some were huge. The quarterback and his offensive line, Myron figured.

“This butt-face bothering you, Pharm?”

The one who said that was huge. He grinned at Myron. The guy had spiky blond hair, but what you first noticed, what you couldn’t help but notice, was that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Here they were at a party. There were girls and punch and music and dancing and even parents. And this guy wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Randy didn’t say anything.

Shirtless had barbed-wire tattoos around his bloated biceps. Myron frowned. The tattoos couldn’t have been more wannabe without the word wannabe actually being stenciled in. The guy was slabs and slabs of beef. His chest was so smooth it looked like someone had taken a sander to it. He rippled. His forehead was sloped. His eyes were red, indicating that at least some of the beer had found its way to the underaged. He wore calf-length pants that might have been capris, though Myron didn’t know if guys wore those or not.

“What are you looking at, Butt-face?”

Myron said, “Absolutely — and I mean this sincerely — absolutely nothing.”

There were several gasps from the crowd. One of them said, “Oh man, is this old dude gonna get a beating or what!”

Another said, “Bring it on, Crush!”

Shirtless aka Crush made his best tough-guy face. “Pharm ain’t talking to you, you got me, Butt-face?”

That got a laugh from his friends.

“Butt-face,” Myron repeated. “It’s even funnier the third time you say it.” He took a step toward the kid. Crush didn’t budge. “This isn’t your business.”

“I’m making it my business.”

Myron waited. Then he said, “Don’t you mean, ‘I’m making it my business, Butt-face’?”

There was another gasp. One of the other guys said, “Oh, mister, run and hide. Nobody wises off to Crush like that.”

Myron looked at Randy. “We need to talk now. Before this gets out of hand.”

Crush smiled, flexed his pecs, stepped forward. “It’s already out of hand.”

Myron didn’t want to take out a kid, not with the parents around. It would cause too many problems.

“I don’t want trouble,” Myron said.

“You already got it, Butt-face.”

Some of the guys oooed at that one. Crush folded his massive arms across his chest. A stupid move. Myron needed to get this out of the way fast, before the parents started noticing. But Crush’s friends were watching. Crush was the resident tough guy. He couldn’t afford to back down.

Arms folded across the chest. How macho. How dumb.

Myron made the move. When you need to take out somebody with a minimum of fuss or mess, this technique was one of the most effective. Myron’s hand started at his side. The natural resting spot. That was the key. You don’t cock the wrist. You don’t pull the arm back. You don’t wind up or make a fist. The smallest distance between two points is a straight line. That’s what you remember. Using his natural hand speed and the element of surprise, Myron shot the hand in that straight line, from the resting point near his hip to Crush’s throat.

He didn’t hit him hard. Myron used the knife edge below the pinky and found the neck’s sweet spot. Few points on the human body are more vulnerable. If you hit someone in the throat, it hurts. It makes them gasp and cough and freeze. But you have to know what you’re doing. You hit it too hard, you could do some serious damage. Myron’s hand darted in and struck cobra-like.

Crush’s eyes bulged. A choking sound got locked in his throat. With almost casual ease, Myron swept out Crush’s legs with his instep. Crush went down. Myron did not wait. He grabbed Randy by the scruff of the neck and started dragging him away. If any kid so much as moved, Myron froze them with a stare-down, all the while hustling Randy into the neighbor’s backyard.

Randy said, “Ow, let me go!”

Screw that. Randy was eighteen, an adult, right? No reason to go soft on him because he was a kid. He took him behind the garage two houses down. When Myron released him, Randy rubbed the back of his neck.

“What the hell is your problem, man?”

“Aimee is in trouble, Randy.”

“She ran away. Everyone said so. People talked to her online tonight.”

“Why did you two break up?”

“What?”

“I said—”

“I heard you.” Randy thought about it, then shrugged. “We outgrew each other, that’s all. We’re both going to college. It was time to move on.”

“Last week you went to the prom together.”

“Yeah, so? We’d been planning for it all year. The tux, the dress, we rented a stretch Hummer with a bunch of friends. The whole group of us. We didn’t want to ruin everyone’s time. So we went together.”

“Why did you two break up, Randy?”

“I just told you.”

“Did Aimee find out you were dealing drugs?”

Randy smiled then. He was a handsome kid and he had a damn good smile. “You make it sound like I’m hanging in Harlem hooking kids on heroin.”

“I’d get into a moral debate with you, Randy, but I’m a little pressed for time.”

“Of course Aimee knew about it. She even partook on more than one occasion. No big deal. I was only providing for a few friends.”

“One of those friends Katie Rochester?”

He shrugged. “She asked a few times. I helped her out.”

“So again, Randy: Why did you and Aimee break up?”

He shrugged again and his tone quieted just enough. “You’d have to ask Aimee.”

“She broke up with you?”

“Aimee changed.”

“Changed how?”

“Why don’t you ask her old man?”

That made Myron pull up. “Erik?” He frowned. “What does he have to do with it?”

He didn’t reply.

“Randy?”

“Aimee found out her father was screwing around.” He shrugged. “It made her change.”

“Change how?”

“I don’t know. It’s like she wanted to do anything to piss him off. Her dad liked me. So all of a sudden”—another shrug—“she didn’t.”

Myron thought about it. He remembered what Erik had said last night, on the end of that cul-de-sac. It added up.

“I cared about her, man,” Randy went on. “You have no idea how much. I tried to win her back, but it just backfired in my face. I’m over her now. Aimee’s not a part of my life anymore.”

Myron could hear the crowd gather. He reached to grab Randy again by the neck, drag him farther away, but Randy pulled back. “I’m fine!” Randy yelled out to his approaching friends. “We’re just talking here.”

Randy turned back to Myron. His eyes were suddenly clear. “Go ahead. What else do you want to know?”

“Your father called Aimee a slut.”

“Right.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“Aimee started seeing somebody else?”

Randy nodded.

“Was it Drew Van Dyne?”

“Doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Nah, not really. With all due respect, none of this does. Look, high school is over. I’m going to Dartmouth. Aimee is going to Duke. My mom, she told me something. She said that high school isn’t important. The people who are happiest in high school end up being the most miserable adults. I’m lucky. I know that. And I know it won’t last unless I take the next step. I thought… we talked about it. I thought Aimee understood that too. How important the next step was. And in the end, we both got what we wanted. We got accepted to our first choices.”

“She’s in danger, Randy.”

“I can’t help you.”

“And she’s pregnant.”

He closed his eyes.

“Randy?”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“You said you did something to try to win her back, but it backfired. What did you do, Randy?”

He shook his head. He wouldn’t say. But Myron thought that maybe he had an idea. Myron gave him his card. “If you think of anything…”

“Yeah.”

Randy turned away then. He headed back to the party. The music still played. The parents kept laughing. And Aimee was still in trouble.