Page 35 of We Are All Guilty Here

“My guy’s Ramon Rodriguez,” Dylan said. “Smart, honest, above-board, but willing to get in the mud if he has to. I’ll ping you his contact info.”

“Okay.” Emmy let out a slow breath. She looked into the windows of the classrooms as they passed. The lights were off. There was no one working in this part of the building. They were finally alone. “Tell me about the drugs.”

Dylan let out his own sigh, but his seemed to come from frustration. “All the schools in the state run a software program called SchoolPlusOne. Everything gets a code. Grades, sure, but also suspensions, fights, assaults, thefts, stalking, drugs. The data gets reported to the state Department of Ed. Bad data, bad reputation, more meddling from the state, possible loss of funding, accreditation issues, angry school board, pissed off parents.”

“They’re not coding the drugs accurately.” Emmy was disappointed but not surprised. “How do they explain the suspensions?”

“Not suspensions. Detentions. The violations get coded as fights, class disruptions, low-level problems. Your sister-in-law refuses to participate, but once it crosses the railroad tracks, the code is magically changed.”

He was referring to the tracks that ran between the highschool and the Clifton County Board of Education. Emmy was not surprised Celia was telling the county office where to stick it. One of her quirks was being a contrarian. “Tell me about Wesley Woodrow.”

“Thug in the making. Sells pot, Oxy, Addies, Mollies.”

“Coke?”

“That’s more of a college thing,” Dylan said. “Woody’s the worst kind of dealer because he’s smart. Sixteen years old. Lives with his grandma over in Clayville. He’s done one stint in juvie. Hasn’t made it to big boy prison yet, but the little shit’s birthday is burned into my soul. One second after midnight on February sixteenth, he’s all mine.”

“I’m not following.”

He stopped walking, so Emmy did, too.

Dylan explained, “School law is different from regular law. I can’t touch a kid until they’re seventeen. Before that, only the administrators can deal with them. Which can be good, because all the school needs is reasonable suspicion to search a kid. As a cop, I have to meet a higher standard of probable cause. I can bring in drug dogs, but I can only search the lockers, which is performative to say the least. I can’t search the kids. I can’t toss their cars or their backpacks. Woody knows the rules better than anybody. He could teach one of my classes.”

Emmy had forgotten that Dylan was going to law school at night. “I heard that Woody won’t deal to North Falls kids.”

Dylan laughed. “Bullshit. Who told you that?”

“Jack Whitlock.”

He winced. “Yeah, that kid’s not your best source for intel. He’s pretty low on the food chain. I do my best to protect them, but the gay kids don’t have an easy time here.”

“He’s gay?”

“Super gay.” Dylan shrugged. “Nice kid, though. What else did you get out of him?”

Emmy was never going to let the wordspocket pussyleave her mouth, but she said, “I don’t think he’s gay. He let me think that he paid Cheyenne fifty bucks to give him a blow job.”

“Maybe?” Dylan shrugged again. “At that age, sexuality can be fluid, especially when a blow job is on the table.”

“What about the cost? You could get a blow job for twenty bucks at the truck stop off the highway.”

“I’ve got no idea what the going rate is, but something is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it.” Dylan added, “Besides, Jack would get his ass kicked at the truck stop. Those ladies are mean as shit.”

“You don’t sound surprised that a fifteen-year-old girl might be trading sex for money.”

“It’s terrible, but high school is terrible. Half of them would walk off a cliff if a Kardashian did it first. The other half would yell at them to walk faster. These kids make astoundingly bad choices. Sometimes I look at them and I think, ‘How is this jackass still alive?’” He seemed to remember himself. “So, no, I’m not surprised Cheyenne was selling herself. I’m kind of heartbroken if you wanna know the truth.”

Emmy felt the same way. “What about an older guy who the kids call the Perv?”

“The Perv?” Dylan looked unsettled, but he shook his head. “Never heard of him. What’s the context?”

“Jack,” Emmy said, but now she was wondering how reliable his information really was. “He told me the Perv is a dealer who hangs out with kids at the Chilly Treat and the Falls. Dark hair. Not tall not short. Average build. Super helpful.”

“I can ask around, but if this Perv’s really a bad guy, it’d be weird for him to not already be on my radar.”

Emmy didn’t doubt it. “Did you know that Cheyenne was dealing? That’s not from Jack. I searched her bedroom and found two eight balls, some pot and Molly, and a shit ton of cash.”

“Seriously?” He looked surprised. “I had no idea, but take that with a grain of salt. Most times when I’m working a case, I’m navigating through overlapping circles. Like, some of the stoners hang with the nerds and this nerd knows a goth who knows a mean girl who might know a jock, and eventually that leads me to the source of the problem. Nobody overlapped with the Cheyenne and Madison circle. It was only the two of them.”

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