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Part I: Wrong Place, Right Time
YOU'RE LISTENING TO LAKEWOOD LOUNGE- SOUND FOR THE SOUL
They say we can't choose who we love, Lakewood. But that don't make it any easier. Nothing howls like a broken heart. 'Cept, maybe… A coyote.
***
A car winds down the twisty lanes to the edge of Lakewood, a high noon sun bearing down above.
'No regrets, Coyote/We just come from such different sets of circumstance…'
The young woman at the wheel is hardened for her years, driving with no purpose in mind but to move, to clear her mind, dispel grief from a fraught heart.
'I'm up all night in the studio/And you're up early on your ranch/You'll be brushing out a brood mare's tail/While the sun is ascending/And I'll just be getting home with my reel to reel…'
Her phone sits on the seat beside her, its latest activity a series of texts from a boy she no longer knows what to think of.
'There's no comprehending/Just how close to the bone and the skin and the eyes/And the lips you can get/And still feel so alone/And still feel related…'
Jamie Teague wants nothing more than to be alone.
'Like stations in some relay/You're not a hit and run driver, no, no/Racing away/You just picked up a hitcher/A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway…'
She reaches a bend in the road, twisting through some scraggily countryside, some miles out from town..
'We saw a farmhouse burning down/In the middle of nowhere/In the middle of the night…'
There's a pokey house sitting at the bend of the road, tiny place with a picket fence and a well-maintained lawn. As Jamie's car glides past, she becomes aware of someone crying.
'And we rolled right past that tragedy/Till we turned into some road house lights…'
Plaintive, broken sobs, from behind the walls of the tiny house.
'That Coyote's at my door/He pins me in a corner and he won't take "No!"/He drags me out on the dance floor/And we're dancing close and slow…'
Nobody gives Jamie a choice. But the choice is there all the same.
'You just picked up a hitcher/A prisoner of the white lines/Of the bright lights/On the freeway…'
Jamie stopped the car in front of the house. What the Hell was going on? Who was crying?
She put her phone in her front shirt pocket, and after some brief thinking, retrieved the Smith and Wesson 637 from the glove compartment.
"Jamie, I just want you to be safe." Her Dad had told her. "If a Deputy or the Sheriff asks, just tell them the truth."
Tucking it in her pants, she exited the vehicle and knocked on the door.
"Hello? Is everyone ok in there?"
There is no sound from within but the constant hysterical appeals of wild, ragged sobs. The door is not locked...
"I'm coming in, ok?" Jamie pulled the gun out and cocked it.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and walked in, gun at the ready...
The door opens on a narrow passage. Narrow, steep stairs hard to the right, and to the left, an archway opening into the living room, and a corpse sprawling out of that archway into the hall.
An elderly woman, wiry and tall, with a strange vitality even in death, is sprawled on a determinedly polished wood floor, her face twisted into an expression of surprise. There is no blood, no abrasions, no obvious indication of violence.
Just beyond, a homey parlor is a shambles. A tartan ottoman lies on its side as if roughly tipped over. A curio cabinet hangs open, tiny figurines tipped over, or knocked, shattered, to the floor below. The brass grate over the empty fireplace has been moved aside, firewood lying disturbed in the hearth.
The sobbing comes from a slight boy, bent down over the dead woman. A pixie-like, angular youth with kinky chestnut hair, well-tended nails, and platform shoes more suitable for a club, he seems entirely foreign in the house. Dainty hands are lowered from his face as he looks up to regard the girl in the doorway.
"She...she's dead!"
Jamie lowers the gun and retrieved her phone, immediately calling the Sheriff's office, "Hello, 911? I need to report a crime..."
Immediately following that, she hung up, and walked over to the kid, "Are you hurt? How'd this happen?"
The boy shook his head, "N-no, I'm...I'm not...it's...it's my grandmother, she...she was..." he grabbed Jamie by the shoulders, delicate, china-like hands holding her in a vice grip, "They killed her! I...I don't know how, but they did."
"It's alright, kid, the cops are on their way," Jamie found herself hugging the kid to try and comfort him, "What's your name, or do I just need to call you 'Kid'?"
"T-Tony..." he sniffled shying away from her touch, "Tony Higgs."
With wide honey-brown eyes, he looks at her with a hush appeal, "You shouldn't have called the police."
"Why not?" asked Jamie, breaking the hug, "You didn't do this, did you?"
Tony shook his head, lowering it to the floor, "No...no..."
And he dissolved into weeping anew, "She was right. Everything she said...she was right!"
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2016- 2:30 PM
***
The Sheriff's Station is a hub of quietly humming energy, deputies moving back and forth, speaking in low tones. Sheriff Acosta stands in the middle of this, a new workload in his lap, and no clear course on how to begin.
Jamie Teague sits in his office, shut out from the outside world and whatever news it holds.
"You want. Me to. Talk with. The suspect?"
Miguel turned to his one eyed Deputy and shook his head. "I'll do it, Richard. Why don't you keep Jamie company until I get done?"
Richard nodded. He was a good man, in Miguel's eyes. But if he let him interrogate any suspect, it would take hours...
The scarred man walked into the office. He nodded and said, "Hi. Jamie."
"Hi, Richard," she replied.
Nothing else was said. There was no grudge against each other, but Jamie wasn't sure what to say. This was not how she planned to spend her afternoon...
***
Miguel walked into the Interrogation Room and said, "Mr. Higgs, I'm Miguel Acosta, the Sheriff. First off, I want to say that I am truly sorry for your loss."
Tony does not meet his eyes.
"She used to say I was all she had left," he sighs, a sound like the clinking of glass on glass, "She was all I had too."
"Well, Tony, there's a bit of a problem. Legally, I'm not allowed to talk with you, without a lawyer, or your legal guardian present," explained Miguel, "Do you have anyone I can call?"
"I have nobody," said Tony flatly, "We...we only came back here a month ago."
He watches the sheriff with weary eyes, "We were in Illinois for a while, but..." he stopped, biting his lip as if he'd already said too much, "Well, if you can't talk to me. You can't talk to me. I guess that's how it is."
In a somewhat overbar show of disaffection, he crossed his legs, dandying one ankle up and down, though it was quite clear how much it was shaking.
Miguel nodded and said, "Someone from CPS will be here within the hour. We can talk then."
As he got up, he asked, "Can I get you anything? Blanket, something to drink? Donuts?"
Tony shook his head, saying, "Donuts are empty calories," in a voice nearly as empty.
Miguel quietly nodded and left the room. Walking to his office, he asked, "Richard, why don't you go keep an eye on the kid?"
"Pun intended?"
Miguel let out a chuckle and nodded. With that, Richard left, leaving Miguel alone with Jamie.
"Is he gonna be alright?" asked Jamie.
"I don't know. But something about him...I don't know. I'm not letting him go."
Jamie shrugged at that. "You already have my statement, right?"
"I do. Any chance you want to explain that .38 in your glove box?" Miguel asked.
She sighed, "My Dad gave it to me the night after Terrence died. I know I can't have a permit yet, but I'm not a felon."
Miguel smirked and replied, "I didn't say I was pressing it, Jamie. Hell, I don't blame your Old Man."
Silence came over them for a minute, before Jamie asked, "Can I talk to him?"
"You're not a cop."
"I just want to check on him." Miguel shrugged.
"Knock yourself out."
***
Jamie entered the room and sat down in front of the young man.
"Hey, Tony."
"...you again," but Tony didn't shrink from her the way he shrank from the sheriff. He studied her through narrow eyes, "You don't go to the high school, do you?"
"No, I graduated last year. Principal's daughter," Jamie explained, leaning forward, "How old are you?"
Tony curled his lip up, miffed, "14. I was at the school. For a hot 24 hours. She..." he paused, "...my grandmother pulled me out. Said it was too dangerous."
His fingers skitter nervously against the smooth, featureless tabletop.
Jamie nodded, biting her lip, before asking, "How long have you know that you were gay?"
It was pretty obvious, now at least.
Tony froze, slowly turning to glare at her, "What does that have to do with anything?"
But he sighed, "I don't know. When did you know you were a lesbian? And don't say you haven't been with a girl at least once, you have Lesbian Face."
In a softer voice, he added, "It doesn't matter anyway. They say everyone's gay in prison."
"I'm bi. Even had a jail wife," Jamie replied, "How could you tell I'd been to jail?"
"You've been to jail?" Tony exclaimed, "What? No, I...I wasn't talking about you. You have? I don't want to know... I'm talking about me. I'm going to jail or worse! Don't try and sweeten it either, I know exactly what's going on here."
"Well, you're the only one," Jamie said, "Want to shed some light in the subject?"
"My grandmother is dead," Tony told her, "She was alive this morning, and now she's dead. And she wasn't just 'hanging on' or anything. She...she was strong. The strongest woman I know. Ripping through the house, giving orders, swearing like a sailor..." he bit his lip, "I went out to mail a postcard, was gone 15 minutes. And then I get back and she's dead on the floor."
He shook his head, "You don't go to the school, but you're the principal's daughter? Then you have to know what happened at that park last month?"
"Oh, I do," Jamie leaned forward and asked, "You think it's connected?"