Page 53 of Crosshairs

When they reached the metal chairs, she sat in the middle chair while Connie took the one to her left. Linc sat across from them both, so that they made a semicircle around the firepit.

“I’m very sorry about your daughter,” he said and Ainsley echoed his sentiments.

Hannah’s mother took one last draw off the cigarette, dropped it beside her shoe, and ground it into the dirt. She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her shorts and dabbed her eyes. “Thank you. I don’t think I’ll ever get done crying. A mother shouldn’t have to bury her child.”

“Do you know anyone who might have wanted to harm her?” Ainsley asked.

“No! Everyone loved her.” Connie swallowed hard. “Just last year, they voted her most beautiful in her sophomore class. That wouldn’t have happened if everybody didn’t like her, right?”

“Could that have made someone jealous?” Ainsley asked softly.

Connie turned and stared into the ashes of the firepit. “Surely not enough to kill her just because she was pretty.” She looked up. “Have you ...” Her chin quivered again. “Nobody’s told me exactly how she died. Those officers just said it was murder.”

“We haven’t gotten the autopsy report yet.”

“You can’t tell me anything?”

“Whatever I told you might be wrong and subject to change.” Ainsley didn’t want to be the one to tell her about the bruises around her daughter’s throat.

Linc leaned forward. “Do you know what she was doing at Rocky Springs that night?”

“No. She told me she was going to the library to help that Kingston boy.” Connie dabbed her eyes again. “She was like that, always wanting to help somebody.”

“Did you know she smoked marijuana?”

“Don’t all kids? I mean, I never asked, but once or twice I thought I smelt it on her,” Connie said. “But what can a parent do? Lock ’em up until they’re twenty-one?”

“Do you know where she might have gotten it?” Linc asked.

She turned to him. “Are you a cop ranger too? I mean, I don’t see no gun on you.”

“No,” he replied. “I’m the ranger at Melrose. Do you know her dealer?”

The thin shoulders raised in a half-hearted shrug. “No. Figured she got it from some of her friends. Are you saying she didn’t?”

“A witness indicated she went to Rocky Springs to meet up with a dealer.”

“You think the dealer killed her?”

“We’re considering that as a possibility. Tell me about your husband. Did he and Hannah get along?”

“Not always.”

“What was their problem?” Ainsley asked.

“She was a teenager, and Wally works long hours. Her musicdrove him crazy, but he tried.” Connie nodded toward the car with the motor hoisted above it. “He was fixin’ that Camaro up for her graduation next year.”

“How about boyfriends?” Ainsley asked.

“She never brought any of her friends around here ... always met them somewhere else, not that I blame her.” Connie flipped the top on the cigarette box and lit another cigarette, her fingers shaking as she lit it.

The smoke drifted toward Ainsley, and she stood and walked out of the line of the fumes. “Did you know Hannah was pregnant?” It was a question she’d dreaded asking.

The girl’s mother sat stock-still, then she ground the cigarette into the dirt. “No,” she said. “I thought she was smarter than that, especially after her sister...”

The dog started barking again. Ainsley walked to the back of her chair and then thought better of sitting again. They were almost finished and the chair was too low to be comfortable. “Do you know who the father might have been?”

“Could’ve been the Kingston boy. They been thick as thieves since school let out.”

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